Part rehab memoir, part travelogue about the wildlife and crashing waves of the Orkneys, Amy Liptrot’s 2016 book The Outrun won prizes and rave reviews, because Liptrot was gesturing to grander horizons than her own personal redemption.

Saoirse Ronan stars as Rona (an fictionalised avatar for Liptrot, who co-authored the screenplay with director Nora Fingscheidt), an Orkney Islander whose hedonistic student lifes

Saoirse Ronan is Rona, a character based on Liptrot, who grows up on a farm on the main island in Orkney, with English parents. Her sense of always being slightly on the periphery of things is exacerbated by her father’s (Stephen Dillane) bipolar diagnosis and her mother’s (Saskia Reeves) evangelical Christianity.

In 2016, Amy Liptrot made a fine publishing debut with a memoir about her alcoholism, The Outrun. Now she has co-written a film based on her book that is a significant achievement in its own right. It’s also the promising debut of Saoirse Ronan and her husband actor Jack Lowden as producers.

The Oscar nominee plays a woman who returns to her hometown of Orkney to get clean following years of excess in London

An emotive turn from the Irish actor is matched by Nora Fingscheidt’s fluent direction while adapting Amy Liptrot’s memoir