Trainspotting (1996)

Succeeded by: T2 Trainspotting (2017)

	Directed by: Danny Boyle	COUNTRY UK GENRE Drama/Comedy NORWEGIAN TITLE Trainspotting RUNNING TIME 94 minutes
	Produced by: Andrew MacDonald
	Written by (based on a novel by Irvine Welsh): John Hodge

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Mark Renton	Ewan McGregor	½
Spud Murphy	Ewen Brenner	½
Sick Boy	Jonny Lee Miller	½
Tommy	Kevin McKidd
Francis Begbie	Robert Carlyle	½
Diane	Kelly MacDonald	½
Swanney	Peter Mullan
Mr Renton	James Cosmo
Mrs Renton	Eileen Nicholas
Mikey	Irvine Welsh

Review

Danny Boyle was promoted from promising new filmmaker to the next big thing in the business with this in-your-face, uphill/downhill depiction of heroin addiction, superficial male camaraderie, and the seemingly prospectless reality of young and aimless twenty-somethings in the outskirts of post-Thatcher Britain, Edinburgh chapter. The adaptation of Irvine Welsh's acclaimed novel was the Boyle/MacDonald/Hodge trio's follow-up to their breakthrough Shallow Grave, and it is a documentary-like lesson in pioneering editing, camerawork, stylistic invention, accumulated into a disturbingly acute portrait of bypassed youth generations and what happens to people who have not found a way to grow up when their own youth culture is being replaced by a new one.

The similarities between Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange are palpable. Ewan McGregor's Mark Renton is Alex DeLarge of the 1990s. His futile existence hovers between light-heartedness and utter inertia. He views himself as an inherently bad person and the society around him as a natural enemy, with him as our "humble narrator". Both films originate in their authors' warnings about British society's corruption of the young, and both films deploy stylistic and often egregious means to make their point. Whereas A Clockwork Orange was about violence, Trainspotting depicts drug use, and it does so in an effectively non-didactic and unbiased manner. It is in the portrait of inebriation that Boyle's work is at its best, as he translates these visceral experiences – both ups and downs – in an often surreal and vividly visual manner. His camerawork and carefully assembled soundtrack allow us to adopt the emotional mode of his wretched characters.

Trainspotting is not primarily a narrative film; it is an atmospheric and evocative piece designed to stir up emotion – from exhilaration and fascination to disgust and gloom. The plot veers along with the recognizable mix of urgent purpose and fundamental meaninglessness that characterizes the life of a drug addict, and throughout, there is always the search for that brief glimpse of hope for the one who happens to be lucky, resourceful or determined enough when the single opportunity to choose life (or electrical tin openers) finally comes along.

Quotes

Mark Renton (McGregor): "We would have injected vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal."