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Trainspotting Review

A clockwork black (tar heroin).

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman

Is it possible to eke even a few laughs out of a film about addiction? It's certainly possible to make something that has a bittersweet quality with a great deal of humor, like the film culled from Carrie Fisher's memoirs Postcards From the Edge. But aiming for a few laughs in a project about outright, horrifying addiction, especially addiction to heroin? It would be like a previous generation's attempting to invest The Lost Weekend, then the most harrowing film depicting alcoholism mainstream audiences had ever seen, with some laughs. That was the challenge facing Danny Boyle when he took on adapting Irvine Welsh's novel Trainspotting for the screen, but the amazing miracle is that Boyle did indeed manage to make a film with a few laughs—albeit squirm-worthy, often unbearably disturbing ones—from a source novel that may have had a cheeky air about it, but which dealt with some deadly serious subjects.

Review - part 2

Trainspotting portrays the lives of a group of heroin addicts, including Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and non-addict Begbie (Robert Carlyle) as they attempt to make their way through the squalid streets of Edinburgh in the 1980's. Imagine A Clockwork Orange's Alex and his "droogs" transported back to the era of hair bands and (stateside) Ronald Reagan and you have some idea of the dissolute mayhem these characters inflict both on themselves as well as innocent bystanders. In fact A Clockwork Orange, while certainly nowhere not quite as cheeky as Trainspotting (and of course it's not meant to be), bears a certain tonal resemblance to the Boyle film, for it also shows a society dangerously at odds with its supposed aims. In Trainspotting we have a group of incredibly poor kids who are living in what is supposed to be the shining jewel of Scotland, except that for them their experience is most definitely a rhinestone (not an authentic diamond) in the rough, if even that.

Review - part 3

There are other correspondences between the two films as well. Both are narrated by their (anti-)heroes, and both portray that twisted soul attempting to go straight in a society that seems more lunatic than their worst drug or violence fueled orgies. The opening sequence of Trainspotting ably sets up the dichotomy between what society wants Renton and his buddies to be and what they envisage for themselves. Society wants them to conform, to prune off their square peg edges to fit in prefab round holes. The anthem "choose life" has taken on a completely different meaning in the United States, but for Renton and his wasted friends the phrase actually is beyond ironic, as the "life" society is urging them to choose spells certain death, or at least the slow dissolution of what they consider to be their souls. Of course they're all horribly deluded, as the depths of their addiction forces them into all sorts of horrible activities, some of which simply can't be recounted here. Suffice it to say you'll probably never look at a public restroom the same way again after having seen Trainspotting.

The film has the rather odd ability to waver drastically between outright slapstick (albeit some genuinely horrifying slapstick) and complete and utter tragedy. What unifies the film and establishes its very unique voice is the ferocious lead performance by a then very young (and largely unkown) Ewan McGregor. Once again as with Malcolm McDowell's Alex in A Clockwork Orange, McGregor evokes a seemingly carefree character who knows full well he's a maladjusted punk but who doesn't really care that much. There's a certain sanguine quality to McGregor's portrayal (as well as McDowell's, frankly) that helps to establish the film's weird manic-depressive tone that alternates between bizarre comic bits and almost melodramatic elements.

Review - part 4

Though McGregor reaped the greatest bounty of critical acclaim when the film came out, there's no dearth of brilliant supporting work here from some fantastic Scottish actors, some of whom (like Kelly McDonald) were making their film debuts. In a sterling cast, keep your eye on the incredible Robert Carlyle, and compare his vicious, visceral performance in this film with his completely opposite turn in The Full Monty. Trainspotting also has some pithy commentary on Scotland's most famous filmic export, a certain Sean Connery.

Trainspotting does devolve into literal potty humor a couple of times and there are several other scenes which many viewers will find troubling at the very least. But it's to the immense credit of director Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge that amidst all this horrifying detritus of wasted human potential there's an element of decency and good that somehow manages to (just barely) shine through. Renton may not know how to get there, but he's aiming for something better. His repeated attempts to get off smack may not be successful (and certainly aren't helped either by his friends or his clueless parents, parents who, yes, might have come directly from A Clockwork Orange), but he sees some kind of light at the end of his hallucinatory tunnel. When he hitches his star to an illicit scheme that provides him with the chance to bring home some serious bacon, and then engages in a not so minor act of betrayal, Renton's narration doesn't try to make excuses and simply concludes that he's not a good person. While it's hard to argue very effectively with that assessment, against all odds Trainspotting posits Renton as redeemable, if only barely.