The plot of “The Outrun” is quite simple. It’s a recovery narrative, the kind that is vitally important to those who’ve lived it but that nonetheless has a fairly predictable shape: exhilaration, then rock bottom, then a slowly spiraling route toward healing, rife with setbacks and halting steps forward.

The crashing of waves, the somber recrimination of chilly charcoal clouds: for the young woman at the center of this story, Rona—played, in a marvelously nuanced performance by Saoirse Ronan —these are both markers of time and reminders that sometimes it’s necessary to temporarily drop out of time,

Our entertainment correspondent sat down with Ronan at the Telluride Film Festival to talk about her starring role in the film.