‘The Outrun’: 5 reasons why Saoirse Ronan will receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination
The Best Actress Oscar race is looking more and more crowded as we get closer to the 2025 awards season, with numerous significant contenders in the running for those five slots. But if there’s one performance that’s surely going to make it in, it’s Saoirse Ronan in “The Outrun,” directed by Nora Fingscheidt. Why? Here are the Top 5 reasons …
1. Previous Oscar nominee.
At only 30 years old, Ronan has already received four Oscar nominations, and thus an acclaimed dramatic performance in her latest film will put her on the radar for many academy members. Her first nomination arrived in the Best Supporting Actress category for “Atonement” (2007) and then she was nominated in Best Actress for “Brooklyn” (2015), “Lady Bird” (2017), and “Little Women” (2019). Receiving as many Oscar noms as she has in such a short period of time shows that the academy is inclined to consider any new Ronan performance, and such should be the case with her latest effort, “The Outrun.”
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2. Oscar-friendly role.
A major reason Ronan has a strong shot at returning to the Oscars for “The Outrun” is that she plays the kind of character academy members have recognized many times before in the Best Actress category. Last year, Andrea Riseborough was a surprise Academy Award nominee for “To Leslie,” which told of a single mother who tries to fight her alcoholism after winning the lottery and spending all her money. For 2008, Anne Hathaway received her first Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category for “Rachel Getting Married,” in which she plays a recovering alcoholic returning home for her sister’s wedding. Going back decades, we also have Jessica Lange in “Blue Sky,” Meryl Streep in “Postcards from the Edge,” Marsha Mason in “Only When I Laugh,” and Bette Midler in “The Rose,” just to name a handful.
3. Strong reviews.
Ronan’s role of Rona, an alcoholic who hits rock bottom and begins the slow journey toward recovery, allows the actress to flex her dramatic muscles in a part that showcases a physical and emotional transformation, and many of the nation’s top critics have taken notice. David Ehrlich in IndieWire said, “It’s Ronan who becomes the film’s most dizzying and mesmeric effect, as the actress feels like an anachronism unto herself in such a modern role.” Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post wrote, “[The movie] is a phenomenal showcase for Ronan, who dares to be unlikable for the rare time in her career.” And Peter Bradshaw in Guardian wrote, “In every shot and every scene, mostly in closeup, Ronan carries the film with her unselfconsciously fierce and focused presence.” Reviews like these will only help Ronan on her trek toward a potential fifth Oscar nomination.
4. Based on a memoir.
Something that will also help Ronan is that all but one of her Oscar-nominated performances have been based on bestselling books, and “The Outrun” follows that trend by being based on the bestselling memoir of the same name by Amy Liptrop. The source material gives the movie a real-life component that has benefitted many Academy Award-winning films in the past — think “12 Years a Slave,” based on the memoir by Solomon Northup, and “Argo,” based on the memoir by Antonio J. Mendez. And academy members have embraced much of Ronan’s work based on acclaimed works of literature, like “Atonement” by Ian McEwan, “Brooklyn” by Colm Tóibin, and “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott. Look for this trend to continue with “The Outrun.”
5. The ‘Blitz’ effect.
One more reason Ronan will receive another Oscar nomination for “The Outrun” is that she’s a big part of a second Academy Award contender this year — the World War II drama “Blitz,” directed by Steve McQueen. The film, coming to theaters on November 1 before streaming three weeks later on Apple TV+, has received strong reviews for Ronan’s performance, and she is a major contender in the Best Supporting Actress category. When an actor has two acclaimed performances in the same year, it can boost their Academy Award chances in one of the categories, or even both. Kate Winslet recently earned double bids for “The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” (2008), and Scarlett Johannson did so for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit” (2019). Ronan might receive her fifth and sixth Oscar nominations in January, “Blitz” in Supporting Actress and “The Outrun” in Lead Actress. And so, five years since her last Academy Awards nom, be prepared for Ronan to soon make her glorious return to the Oscars.
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