Saoirse Ronan is the year’s first Oscar contender

The year’s first possible Oscar contender — well, for 2025 — is Saoirse Ronan as a tortured alcoholic who seeks refuge in nature in “The Outrun.”

The actress is gutsy and raw, and doesn’t overplay a single second like so many accolade-hungry actors in addiction movies do. 

Director Nora Fingscheidt’s tough drama, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, is based on Amy Liptrot’s 2016 memoir of the same name and serves up a meaty part for Ronan, who is at her best playing characters at a crossroads.

This one is Rona, a Londoner who grew up on the remote Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland and drinks to soothe the open wounds of her past.

She’s a bad drunk — the sort who downs everybody’s leftovers at last call and then kicks and screams when she’s angrily told to leave. 

Rona habitually puts herself in dangerous situations and never remembers what she did or said the night before.

Fingscheidt tells the woman’s story in a messy, non-linear way that claustrophobically mimics a boozy blackout. Dates and details are obscured: when she goes to rehab, at what point she relapses, the day she goes back to her parents’ stunning if sparsely populated town.

By the sea, though, Rona — and the film — begin to find clarity.

For her, home is where the healing is, but it’s also the root cause of her problems. Rona’s father, Andrew (Stephen Dillane), has bipolar disorder, so she grew up with an unpredictable and often non-present dad. Her mom, Annie (Saskia Reeves), left him and now runs their farm alone while Pop lives elsewhere on the property.

Back in the rocky Orkneys, Rona is at once calmed and antsy. For city dwellers, wide-open landscapes offer a different kind of claustrophobia. She also misses her ex-boyfriend, Daynin (Paapa Essiedu), who became fed up with her drunken behavior and empty apologies.

But Nora is committed to getting better, with the help of an even-harder-to-reach island, rare birds, accepting locals and self-belief.

I’ll admit to having an addiction-movie fatigue. Films have been made about substance abuse for decades, of course, but lately, there’s been a glut of them, particularly about the opioid epidemic. There was “Ben Is Back” with Julia Roberts and “Beautiful Boy” starring Timothee Chalamet. A few years back at Sundance I saw the premiere of the awful “Four Good Days” starring Mila Kunis and Glenn Close. Many of those gave into a pat, made-for-TV formula.

To its credit, “The Outrun” takes a different road, preferring instead to shake us up imagery — sometimes sickening, sometimes breathtaking — rather than sob speeches. Thinking back, it’s a very quiet and lonely movie.

It is a phenomenal showcase for Ronan, who dares to be unlikable for the rare time in her career. Her natural charm and whimsy we’re used to from “Lady Bird” and “Little Women” is but a glimmer in Rona’s eye — and that little light is why the viewer roots for this troubled woman as hard as they do.

Ronan’s performance will surely be a talker in the months to come.