| Trainspotting (1996) | |
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Rating: 8.1/10 (725,674 votes) Director: Danny Boyle Writer: Irvine Welsh, John Hodge Stars: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller Runtime: 93 min Rated: R Genre: Drama Released: 09 Aug 1996 |
| Plot: Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out despite the allure of drugs and the influence of friends. | |
Adapted from the novel by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting is a look at a disenfranchised group of twenty somethings who inhabit the world of drug addiction. The film keyed into the era’s consciousness even before it released thanks to an impactful marketing campaign which saw character posters emblazoning phone booths, bus stops, and any spare space around, as well as a series of images that demanded explanation – Ewan McGregor climbing out of a toilet for example – and a Choose Life philosophy that spoke to the folk of that age group.
Suffice to say, at the age of 23 when the film came out, I WAS that target demographic. Flunked university, and now scratching a living on minimum wage in a dead end job, I clung to nightclubs and drinking – and perhaps a smoke or two – to give my existence some meaning. Trainspotting spoke to me – even though I had never been deep into hard narcotics.
Whilst Ewan McGregor had already worked with Danny Boyle on the pair’s first film Shallow Grave two years earlier, this film well and truly put him on the radar and made him a star. As the lead voice, Renton, in the film, he is the narrator taking us into this world that is sometimes exciting, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes melancholic, as the highs, lows, overdoses, and more are covered over the breezy 90 minute run time. Joining him in the adventure are Ewan Bremner as Spud – a character who is slight, and provides comic relief, but is the humble heart of the gang – Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, with a style and obsession with Sean Connery, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, and Robert Carlyle as the somewhat psychotic Begbie. Also the film introduced Kelly Macdonald as Diane, who featured prominently on the poster campaign, even though her role was slight…albeit significant. The character mix for the group was a strange one, but also one which allowed us all to identify friends we have that show similar traits.
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Boyle’s direction, coupled with Brian Tufano’s cinematography (who he worked with on Shallow Grave) combine to make this a uniquely visual film with fantastical, sometimes sickening, and sometimes harrowing images to draw us into the drug fuelled world of Renton and his mates.
By the close of the film you are clamouring for more – what happened to the gang next? Where did Renton go? Answers to these would come initially via the follow up novel Porno, but then for the film incarnations would arrive 20 years later when T2 was released.
The pair of films are held in high regard by me due to their direct connectivity to my own life.
