Trainspotting
Trainspotting
Anna Macedo
Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, this film has been described as "The Young Ones on Heroin", but the comparison is only as true as a facetious comment need be: the powerful impact of Trainspotting is also maintained by its use of comedy - but it is comedy on a higher level.
It is not surprising that the tabloid press represented Trainspotting as a pro-drugs film; I believe, however, that it is quite the opposite. The lifestyle of heroin addicts is portrayed with a gritty realism that is genuinely disgusting, yet the constant comic element keeps the viewer gripped.
The film basically depicts the way heroin addiction enters and leaves people's lives; we see how some of the characters live with heroin and how others die as a result of it. The plot revolves around Renton - compellingly portrayed by Ewan McGregor - the lives of his friends and his experiences in Leith and London. Most of the violence is instigated by Begbie (Robert Carlyle), an alcoholic who nevertheless introduces himself by telling us that he never touches drugs.
Life for these characters is permeated with crime, either getting away or getting caught, giving up or going back on to drugs. Renton does eventually break free but only by betraying his friends. You may come out of the film wondering whether he did the right thing - before you realise he did the only possible thing. Perhaps Trainspotting does miss an opportunity to comment constructively on the many problems it highlights, but I feel it is intended to entertain rather than inform.
Megan Hiatt
How does Danny Boyle's highly acclaimed film Trainspotting live up to Irvine Welsh's groundbreaking novel? Boyle's film is certainly entertaining - fast-paced, inventive and energetic. The culture of drugs addiction in Edinburgh is both enlivened and enlightened by an irreverent, non-naturalistic style of film-making that could be mistaken for approbation were it not for Renton's increasing need to break free from his past.
Atypically, however, this does not mean that he is desperate to control the addiction itself. Far from it: in both film and book the physical addiction to heroin itself is conquerable, but its implications are far more deadly. And this is where the film is lacking a certain something. Yes, the audience understands that Renton must sever all ties with his social group, must reject his "mates", especially the vicious Begbie, in order to "choose life". And yes, long-term physical problems contracted through drug use, in this case AIDS, are vividly portrayed.
But because the film omits many of Welsh's references to particular aspects of life on the housing estates and amongst the unemployed in Leith, including the use of the vernacular that distinguishes the book and establishes a sense of community, much of the social commentary is lost.
We are instead presented with a film that memorably, powerfully and unusually depicts the vicious cycle in which the drug users are ensnared as a social phenomenon, but refuses to draw any conclusions as to causes or solutions..
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