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Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.
Ewan McGregor: Renton
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting is a film in which it all clicks and comes together in a dizzying array of drugs and characters. The film starts off startlingly realistically with Renton chastising that he wouldn't do drugs if he didn't enjoy it. With this, we learn in a headlong rush that the world of drug abuse that we've been taught about and steered away from is like any other addiction and that to an extent, we the audience, are no better than the people on screen.
Very light-hearted and fantasy is the first quarter of the film, common sense seems to evapourate and it's not made entirely open why drugs are considered bad in society. But the enjoyable scenario that you settle comfortably into doesn't last for long and soon it's apparent that director Danny Boyle is showing the good and the bad, the two extremes, the black and white. Whilst viewing Trainspotting you're in junkie paradoxical limbo.
Not many movies are lucky enough to be made at the right time and place then continue to steal the world by storm as Trainspotting did, but the ultimate proof of this film's mastery is that if you watched it alone or in a mass, in the far future or back in 1996, it still has the same effect of absolute hold over you in it's depiction of what it is to be a drug addict. Trainspotting is nothing short of being among the most effective, the most perfectly executed artistic works ever committed to film.
I mean Renton going fully into a toilet and swimming around before re-emerging is a perfect example of how warped and deliciously disgusting to watch this film is. Or his fantastical visions of a baby on a ceiling with Dale Winton on TV really is bizaare as if you are experiencing the drugged up state that hes in alongside him.
Ewan McGregor does a fantastic job in the role of Renton and quite easily makes us believe he is quite simply, a druggie.
The appearance of a young Kelly Macdonald as Diane was fun. So was the fact in finding out Diane is still at school, which had my mouth ajar, and the fact that Renton finds this out after. Highly amusing.
Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy shows us another Brit film part he pulls of nicely.
But Robert Carlyle as the maddened Begbie with his terrible temper was a compelling character to see with an uncontrollable rage. He really made the part his own and gave a performance that remains for me memorable.
The soundtrack is a perfect blend with some catchy and songs everyone with British origin knows. Accompanied with the narration by Ewan and it becomes hypnotic.
From a technical standpoint, the camera-work and cinematography are fluid, inventive and original.
The story itself is nothing new but is written and executed in such a wild energized fashion that everything seems to have a fresh feel.
For a film ironically called Trainspotting Danny Boyle gives us something that shows what a talent he truly is. He shows us a serious yet comical drug movie which doesn't glamorize the use of drugs nor does it dismiss or damn them.
Trainspotting is a film for anyone who wants to take a trip to the dark world of Heroin but also see the spark and rush that keeps people there.
For anyone who's not scared to cross the border on morals and what's right.
Trainspotting is for anyone who chooses life, and unlike Requiem for a Dream it gives us an ending of positiveness, and of hope.
10/10
