Trainspotting – Danny Boyle’s drug-addled cult classic is still potent two decades later
Ahead of the arrival next month of the sequel T2, the original Trainspotting is getting a re-release – and despite the film’s flaws, it stands up well as a realistic portrayal of the lows (and highs) of drug addiction
Some critics accused Trainspotting of promoting drug use when it was released, in 1996, but they couldn’t have watched the whole movie. After a jaunty start, Danny Boyle’s film doesn’t shrink from showing the misery, social destruction and death that results from heroin addiction. The trick of the movie is the way it makes its point casually, rather than polemically – unlike the doom-laden addicts in Christiane F., those in Trainspotting have a roguish charm.
While this may not lead to an accurate depiction of heroin addiction – the gang all look far too healthy, for a start – it does make the film watchable enough to make its point. Trainspotting is one of the most popular British films of the past 20 years, and perhaps the most popular Scottish film ever.
The story takes place in a depressed area of Edinburgh and revolves around a group of heroin users in the late 1980s. The sensitive Renton (Ewan McGregor) is the focus while his friends and fellow users include the would-be drug dealer Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and the inept Spud (Ewen Bremner). The psychopathic Begbie (Robert Carlyle) prefers alcohol to drugs, and is the nastiest of the lot.
The film follows Renton’s attempts to stop using heroin and live a more conventional life – something that is always stymied by the drug-related activities of his friends. Around him, the lives of fellow addicts are destroyed by heroin. The film’s appeal comes from the way Boyle presents the addicts as proactive anti-heroes rather than passive victims.