Trainspotting (1996) – 3/5

Interesting watch, even if it cannot keep the high level from early on

The following relatively short two paragraphs are my review from September 2017:

„Trainspotting“ is a 90-minute movie from the UK and this one was released back in the 1990s. It had its 20th anniversary last year and just got a sequel even more recently. This sequel brought back all the key players from the original here, not just Oscar winner Danny Boyle, but also his writer John Hodge and all the key players from the cast including lead actor Ewan McGregor. But this is not just a very British movie, it is also a very Scottish movie, not on the level of Braveheart, but close behind. It has also become a huge cult classic over the years and I am not too surprised it is comfortably inside IMDb’s Top250 as really everybody has heard the title Trainspotting and not just since the sequel. But back to this one here: It is basically the story of a heroin addict and we get to watch his attempts to get clean. At the same time, we get an insight into the criminal life involving him and his friends that keep raising new obstacles in his way to a better life. So there are many subjects in here: crime, friendship, addiction, love too, although it really isn’t in the middle of the action at any point.

I find it interesting to see how the careers of the protagonists continued in the two decades since this came out. Some made it big, starred on Star Wars or won Emmys, while for others (and not too few) this movie here is still the career-defining work. Not a surprise though given the film’s status. One would be John Hodge, the writer I mentioned earlier because he scored an Oscar nomination with his screenplay here, nothing really to be taken for granted as I can see American audiences and awards bodies struggling with the material here. But I guess class prevailed. Oh yeah, I really want to mention the many James Bond references here and this film is definitely a nice little tribute to 007. I am a huge fan of the latter, so these inclusions were one reason why I liked the first 45 minutes more than the second 45 minutes overall. Surely the ending was pretty great, but before that there was a great deal of mediocrity at times sadly. This is a bit strange as there was a lot more happening in the second half than early on. The beginning was really more of an introduction to the characters and their backgrounds and I felt that story-wise there wasn’t too much happening, at least not compared to the later parts of the film. Maybe it was Boyle’s talent that made the film stand out when it stood out the most. I can’t deny I like him. Overall, this 1996 film as well as its recent sequel were good, but not great films in my opinion. I recommend them both.

Now in springtime 2023, I had the chance to see this film again, on the big screen, and I went for it and would like to add some thoughts:

I was not one bit surprised that the room was literally packed during my screening, so full that they, I think on short-term, added another showing the following day, so that everybody who wanted to see it also could see it. Boyle I still like and Ewan McGregor who plays the title character here feels right for the part, not only because of his Scottish background. I watched the film this time on the occasion of a British film retrospective and a few days earlier, I saw the film „Brassed Off“ that had also McGregor in the cast, even if not as much in the center of the movie as he is here. Two very different roles, but he proved he could pull them off. Here, he is of course more on the rough side. In general, I would say that I stay with my rating of 3 out of 5 or 6 out of 10 depending on which scale we are looking at. I would like to talk a bit more about the inclusion of heroin in here. You could say Boyle would have depicted this awful drug as too harmless by the way if he had kept the initial approach throughout the entire film. It is basically said (by a junkie) that it is so much better than sex even and the way they treated it was rather in a fashion as you would expect it from marijuana. This should not be depicted as too positive either, which it often is, but this is another story. However, as the film goes on, crucially tragic events happen that are at least indirectly linked to heroin: We have one character die, the 007 fan, even if his death is linked as much to HIV as it is to him being a drug addict. But yeah, you can catch the disease from needles of course too. And then there is maybe the most shocking moment of it all when all the guys lie around there drugged beyond belief for days and the baby that also resides in the apartment dies. I am not entirely sure, but I feel like the baby was not starved to death, but rather got into contact with heroin at some point and got it into its system. Or „her system“ I should maybe say as she was a girl. This was of course heartbreaking, also the way how the mother then cried her heart out immediately afterwards.

This resulted in the main character (McGregor) stepping away from heroin (again) and he does so in the presence of his parents, who basically lock him in his room, so it is a really hard cold-turkey withdrawal if you wanna call it that. The illusions there were also pretty much on the entertaining side, but also shocking. I mean Begbie is surely a man you do not want to find under your blanket ever. But the most shocking moment from this segment included the baby again as the main character saw things that weren’t real because of the withdrawal and one was the baby basically turning its/her head like as if it had been on „The Exorcist“, but also when it falls down on the man there, it is just as haunting. In this scene, the film can surely be also called a horror movie I suppose. But aside from the drug issues, there are also some moments you can laugh a lot here. Perhaps the one that the crowd in my screening enjoyed the most from a funny disgusted perspective was Spud’s blanket or rather bedsheet in the morning being full of feces and how those are thrown all over his girlfriend and her parents, especially her mother, at the breakfast table. Now, that was rough. But Spud was maybe the good guy from the gang or at least the least bad guy you could say. Not sure if any of them was a good guy. But the protagonist making sure Spud gets at least some of the money at the end then makes clear that he liked him and also that McGregor’s character himself was not a heartless evil thief or so. Of course, Spud also could have woken Begbie up there or so, but he didn’t, but seeing him awake there was also among the most memorable moments from the film. Seeing Begbie vandalize the place then until the police comes was kinda entertaining too. He was surely the most sinister one from the bunch. The sequel confirmed that.

The prominent status of this original film here is also confirmed not only by the existence of a sequel, but by the fact that they got Boyle and the two key writers on board again almost two decades later. That is quite something. But now a few more words on this original here: I must say that the females in here, except the mother characters maybe, were all really attractive, if not downright stunning. The latter surely applies to the young Kelly Macdonald, who was not even 20 I think when this got made or barely was and this was her very first film performance ever. Totally my type. The shape of things to come, especially as we see her topless or even nude on one occasion. But she was not a minor anymore the way her character was apparently, so it is all safe. But then again equality prevails as you also see some male genitalia in this movie. Back to Macdonald though, hers is perhaps the most breathtaking female character I have seen in years on television. Nice to see she starred in some big movies afterwards, also won an Emmy and is still a very active actress now that she is getting closer to her 50th birthday. Still very attractive. Aside from that, as always with Boyle, even if he is not credited as a writer, the dialogues are as sharp and in-your-face as they can be. Good to see. I talked about the James Bond connection earlier already and it is nice that not just the very biggest films are referenced, but also some of the others. Of course, this connection is interesting in the face of Boyle being about to direct the most recent James Bond film himself, Daniel Craig’s final Bond performance, but then stepping away from the projects because of creative differences. I will not say where these came from exactly, even if it is known nowadays because I do not want to provide spoilers for a different film here, but I am most certainly on Boyle’s side in terms of the issue at hand. I hope he can still direct a 007 movie one day.

Anyway, I will now provide some more brainstorming here linked to „Trainspotting“ before I reach the end of my review. I am still struggling to understand why the film is named like this. I could surely read an explanation, but I do not really want to. I wish the film would make it easier to understand the title (I suppose it is linked to drug abuse) and I would have picked a different title, but I guess with how known this movie is and how everybody recognizes the title right away as it already said in my old review, they made the right decision to go with this one here then. Just my thoughts on the name issue. Oh yeah, the toilet scene. I must mention this one. Honestly, this was so gross and even if I was probably not as disgusted as some of the other people in the room, especially the girls, it was still repulsive beyond belief. With the superlative we read before things get really gross, it almost felt a bit like taken from a Tarantino movie, but of course it wasn’t. I read now that all the brown stuff you see in there was basically chocolate. Haha, good for them or for McGregor especially. I hope they had a nice tasting at least before that. Afterwards, probably not most likely. That is all then. Go see „Trainspotting“ if you haven’t yet.