Amy Liptrot is today a prominent journalist and writer. But the road to success was marked with some serious and self-destructive heavy drinking. After several spectacular failed attempts to get a handle on her alcoholism, she returned from London to her home turf in Scotland’s wild Orkney Islands to reconnect with her past and seek redemption. The memoir she wrote about this journey became a best-seller, which has now been adapted into this devastatingly insightful film by German director Nora Fingscheidt.

Okay, addiction-recovery stories heavy on melancholic resilience may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a hard sit. But it avoids the cliches of the genre and has two things going for it. The first is its starkly beautiful, epic backdrop (the title refers to outlying grazing lands cleansed by the harsh elements). And the other is the committed performance by the amazing Saorise Ronan. It’s a career-best, and that’s saying something for the actor who has given us Atonement, The Lovely Bones, Hanna, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lady Bird, Little Women, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. And don’t forget Muppets Most Wanted. The woman never seems to be acting.

The film is as unsparing as addiction itself. Fingscheidt uses a non-linear approach in which the segues are not clearly delineated, adding a sort of (intended) sympathetic confusion. You have to pay attention. Those who will most appreciate this film are of course addicts, recovered or not, or anyone who knows one. That includes most of us. (118 min)