Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  We like to believe that everyone can be helped. Human beings can be lifted out of poverty, taught to walk again, have their cancer removed and their psychic trauma reduced to a manageable state. Central to this is an unwritten contract between society and the individual: submit to treatment and you will be cured. The individual must buy into their own salvation. Unfortunately, some people can’t and won’t submit. They have their addictions to manage, their perceived needs and bad habits. Benni (Helena Zengel) the nine-year old titular System Crasher of writer-director Nora Fingscheidt’s film is one such person. She cannot bear to have her face touched – it turns her feral. Rejected by multiple group homes for her violent conduct and unable to live with her mother (Lisa Hagmeister) – Benni doesn’t approve of her mother’s boyfriend and when she won’t ask him to leave, Benni attacks her with a jug – she remains a force to be contained. Micha (Albrecht Schuch) has an idea: to take her...

  Pictured : Rona ( Saoirse Ronan ) controls the waves in a scene from ' The Outrun ', a British-German co-production, adapted by Amy Liptrot from her memoir in collaboration with director Nora Fingscheidt . Photograph: Roy Imer . Still courtesy of Studio Canal (UK) Saoirse Ronan is the whole show as Rona, the fictionalised version of author Amy Liptrot, whose memoir The Outrun has been brought to the screen by German director Nora Fingscheidt. In an early scene, in a London pub, Rona is out of control, wanting one more drink, one more, come on, I’m on the bar, I don’t want to leave, hey, get your hands off of me. Fingscheidt knows ‘ein ding oder zwei’ about out-of-control women. Her 2019 debut feature, Systemsprenger ( System Crasher ) featured a mesmerising performance from nine-year-old Helena Zengel, as an emotionally disturbed boundary testing child who just wants to live with her mother – and no one else. In The Outrun , we don’t know what feeds Rona’s alcoholism – ther...