By Reed Ripley
The Outrun
- Directed by: Nora Fingscheidt
- Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Stephen Dillane, Saskia Reeves
- Drama | R | 1 hr 58 min
- 4 stars
In the past decade, addiction’s unfortunate communal familiarity has translated into a bevy of films that grapple with the disorder’s impacts.
The Outrun falls squarely into that category, but interesting filmmaking and a magnificent performance from Saoirse Ronan elevate the film from relatable-yet-forgettable to excellent and memorable.
The film follows 29-year-old Rona (Ronan) through her first few months of sobriety following a tailspin of drinking and drugs in London that sees her lose her education, career and relationships. She returns to her home in Scotland’s Orkney Islands (where her separated parents still live, her mom throwing herself into religion and her dad barely maintaining a farm and struggling with a chronic mental disorder) to sequester and recover, leaning on the Orkney locals and the Island’s natural beauty in the process.
The Outrun does a wonderful job not taking the bait and avoiding certain tropes of the addiction narrative. That’s not to say those aren’t still there (vomiting after a binging episode, circling up at AA meetings, violently lashing out at those around you for trying to help, etc.), but they aren’t lingered upon. Instead, the film highlights the unique attributes of Rona’s particular journey of recovery—namely, framing that recovery with earnest Orkney locals and the Islands’ ancient, rugged, beauty—to tell an undeniably personal story.
That story is coupled with consistently interesting filmmaking, too. The variety is wonderful, with angled close-ups, framed wide-shots and broad vistas, and even a few animated sequences sprinkled in. The Outrun is never boring, which is difficult to pull off with a two-hour drama. The filmmaking helps that, of course, but Ronan’s performance is the film’s truly elevating quality. Ronan is so talented at executing an actor’s number one job—playing a character—and from the moment she appears on screen, she absolutely disappears into Rona.
The film’s not perfect, and particularly, it gets a little too cute with some of its devices. For example, Rona frequently narrates via voiceover, and although it was clearly meant to convey an internal dialogue or diary, it doesn’t quite fit, and it takes away slightly from a film that’s otherwise more showy than telly. That said, The Outrun is simply well-made, and Ronan’s performance takes it to a special place.
Joker: Folie à Deux
- Directed by: Todd Philips
- Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener
- Musical/Drama | R | 2 hr 18 min
- 1.5 stars
Is a sequel worthwhile if it’s primarily intended to scold a portion of its predecessor’s audience for not “getting it”?
That’s Joker: Folie à Deux is a film that never seemed like a good idea, and in execution is even more baffling.
The entire film is apparently a message from director Todd Philips to those who saw 2019’s Joker and admired the title villain’s unhinged descent into chaos and violence. Setting aside how many actually took that away from Joker and how much that was more of an overinflated and anxiety-driven narrative of “incel” culture embracing the Joker character, it’s crazy to think Philips was so annoyed with that perception that he turned the sequel into an open rebuke of any positive feelings associated with Joker.
Joker: Folie à Deux’s message is that the Joker, Arthur Fleck (Phoenix, reprising is Oscar-winning role), is a very bad person spawned from society’s tendency to ignore and cast aside certain people. That’s exactly what Joker’s message was, but where Joker was ultimately an entertaining watch, Joker: Folie à Deux is an outright slog that’s difficult to sit through. That isn’t helped by the decision to make it a “musical,” especially where none of the songs are fully sung and Lady Gaga’s (playing Harley Quinn) incredible vocal talents are almost entirely wasted, and it’s further made worse by having the film devolve into a mostly boring courtroom drama.
2019’s Joker drew a lot of inspiration from Martin Scorsese, and particularly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but leading up to Joker: Folie à Deux, Philips should have paid more attention to one of Scorsese’s more modern triumphs, The Wolf of Wall Street. Plenty of people missed that film’s main point—that Jordan Belfort is not a hero and instead represents an incredibly toxic, deplorable segment of Wall Street—because the film’s an absolute blast. But Scorsese didn’t feel the need to make The Wolf of Wall Street: Folie à Quaalude to correct people about their takeaways, and Philips should have done the same and left Joker well enough alone.
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