Review: Trainspotting

In Trainspotting, Danny Boyle injects a brutally honest world of characters directly into your brain for an insightful, morbid, and entertaining trek through the complexities of an entrapped generation and the mediocrity of an ordinary life. Will you choose life? Or will you choose something different . . . what are your reasons?

Director: Danny Boyle

Writer: John Hodge

Based on: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh

Released: February 23, 1996 (United Kingdom)


Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald

4.5/5 junkies eaten by toilets

“I chose not to choose life. I chose something else.”

Once in a while a movie comes along that takes convention by the throat, turns it around, and stabs it in the back. Every now and then a film can be simultaneously repulsive, heart wrenching, and hilarious. Sometimes there are people like Danny Boyle and his movie Trainspotting.

The film opens with young Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) running through the gritty streets of Edinburgh; we don’t know why he is running yet but we get the inclination that it’s toward a form of freedom or escape. This scene is cradled by an upbeat punk song and transcended through an overlaying narration—presumably Mark—telling us about the humdrum nature of an ordinary life and his decision to choose something other than life. The reasons? “Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin.”  This scene is hyperactive, philosophical, and ardent; an energy that continues throughout the film and compels us to jump right into the world with Mark and his mates.

Mark is a self-proclaimed heroin addict, and a filthy one, willing to dive head first into the dirtiest of water to get his fix—literally (see the picture above). We follow him through his addiction to heroin, his quitting heroin, his return to heroin, his detox, his friend’s heroin addiction, their weird sense of camaraderie that entails ripping each other off; this incessant cycle seems to be Mark’s life. He and his friends are constantly coming back to heroin.

The director, Danny Boyle, took an ambitious project, a dangerous one, with a lot to handle; the world represented demanded very intricate attention and, fortunately, Boyle was brilliant. He took a movie full of risk and did not play it safe. He crafted a movie riddled with desperation, grotesqueries, and amoral characters into an exciting and often humorous experience. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous that a movie founded on such dark principles could be humorous and exciting but this is just a testament to Boyle’s ability. Even when the scenes are heart wrenching (I don’t mean just pulled out of your chest I mean torn out of your chest thrown to the ground and stomped on) it is impossible to look away.

What made this possible was the brilliant world painted through the script. The pacing was near perfection with no scene seeming out of place or unimportant. Every character introduced inhabited the world immaculately; personifying the intricacies, complexity, and honesty of the world. It leads us through the struggles of a generation in flux and the philosophical undertones that are involved.

The movie segregates itself from other movies about drug addiction by refusing to lean on any side of the fence. The film is not pro-drug but it is not anti-drug either. Instead, Danny Boyle decided to detail the experience with candor; giving us a harrowing, repulsive, yet, intriguing film. Brutal honesty has the power to represent something with such tenacity that the human brain is helpless to its call; it engraves itself into your soul and doesn’t let go until you accept it for what it is: reality.

However, if this movie was truly about drug addiction it would not have that kind of power. There is something deeper and more philosophical at work.

Mark seems to have been born into a state of ennui; he is trapped in a world that advertises life but life is nothing, it doesn’t matter, it isn’t real. Ever the nihilist he searched for a way to escape the trenches of day to day life and that’s where he found heroin—nirvana. But the effects of heroin are illusory; leading to a despairing life of addiction and regret. Mark is trapped in a temporary state of ignorance while high (which he can’t stay in forever) but when sober he is once again faced with the emptiness of life. The message behind the film seems to be entrapment and escape from the mediocrity of an ordinary life; something that each character attempts to deal with in their own way.

Speaking of Mark, Ewan McGregor is fantastic. His narration and presence in the film really tie this world together; he has no trouble carrying the movie. This isn’t to say the other actors are something to laugh at. The entire cast put together truthful and invigorating performances—especially Robert Carlyle. Carlyle played the non-heroin addict and psychopath Begbie; giving a completely honest and entertaining portrayal of a man, who instead of using drugs to escape the world, gets off on sadism and skullduggery.

This is all cradled by a fantastic soundtrack that, not only is a great standalone piece, was chosen expertly to personify each scene as well as the themes. Danny Boyle has a keen taste for music; a pop-sensibility but nothing so familiar that it detracts from the movie.

Let’s not forgot the cinematography; which is imaginative and full of aesthetic beauty. It impeccably represents the world and is a key to the immersive nature.  The camera inhabits space in a dream-like fashion, representing the drug induced, yet imprisoned state, of Mark Renton. This style is prevalent in all of Boyle’s films. His inventive camera angles are really something to marvel at and the editing is brilliant. There’s an intriguing scene where Renton’s entire body disappears into a toilet (the worst toilet in Scotland) and he finds himself completely surrounded by water; until he swims back up and out of the toilet. This scene alone is remarkable, nauseous, and hilarious. Danny Boyle knows what he’s doing; he’s one of the more creative working directors today.

Trainspotting is an intelligent film that will take you on a journey; brilliantly canvased by Mark Renton and his inability to choose life.  Boyle injects a brutally honest world of characters directly into your brain for an insightful, morbid, and entertaining trek through the complexities of an entrapped generation and the mediocrity of an ordinary life. Will you choose life? Or will you choose something different . . . what are your reasons?

Contributions by Ryan Horner