Trainspotting
(1996)
Directed
by: Danny
Boyle.
Written
by: John
Hodge based on the novel by Irvine Welsh.
Starring:
Ewan
McGregor (Renton), Ewen Bremner (Spud), Jonny Lee Miller (Sick Boy), Kevin
McKidd (Tommy), Robert Carlyle (Begbie), Kelly Macdonald (Diane), Peter Mullan
(Swanney), James Cosmo (Mr. Renton), Eileen Nicholas (Mrs. Renton), Susan Vidler (Allison), Pauline Lynch
(Lizzy), Shirley Henderson (Gail), Stuart McQuarrie (Gavin / US Tourist),
Irvine Welsh (Mikey Forrester).
It can be a strange experience
going back and revisiting a movie you loved as a teenager for the first time in
years as an adult. Such is the case I had recently watching Danny Boyle’s
Trainspotting – in preparation for the sequel out this month – a film that came
out when I was 15 years old, and that I probably watched at least 5 times
before I graduated from high school in 2000 – and then, I don’t think I’ve seen
the film since. It’s interesting to see the film now for all these years later for
several reasons. One is that while the cast was largely unknown at the time,
almost all of the major roles were filled by actors, who if they didn’t become
huge stars, at least became well known working actors. Another is to see, in a
rawer form, the same sort of direction that Danny Boyle would refine through
the years- culminating 12 years later with Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – a film
that uses the same kind of tricks that Trainspotting does to try and energize
the audience. The difference is that in 1996, that felt new and exciting (at
least to the novice cinephile I was at the time), and by 2008, it felt like a
safe choice. Finally, watching a film like Trainspotting as an adult really
does let you know, rather quickly, how much you’ve aged. I remembered the film
as a drug film about how fun it was to do drugs – right up until the time it
isn’t fun anymore, and you need to stop or die. What surprised me on this
viewing is how quickly things really do turn dark in Trainspotting – we’re
barely a half hour in when Baby Dawn dies – and Renton (Ewan McGregor) removes
all doubt about what an absolute shit he is – going immediately to fix himself
another dose of heroin – and while he’s “thoughtful” enough to prepare one for
Baby Dawn’s mother as well – he notes that, of course, she got hers after he
got his. Viewing the film as an adult, I don’t see it so much as about freedom
– as I did when I was a teenager – but about a group of selfish assholes. Oddly
though, that doesn’t make me like the film any less.
There is a rawness and energy
about Trainspotting from its opening sequence – when Renton, Sick Boy (Johnny
Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremmer) are all running from the cops (set to Iggy
Pop’s Lust for Life – one of the many great songs that made the soundtrack one
of the best of the 1990s). Renton gets bumped by a car – and immediately pops
back up again – but instead of running, just looks at the driver and laughs –
right before he’s tackled. The movie then flashes backward, not to the
beginning of Renton’s story, but just the part he chooses to begin with
(whatever made him – or anyone – start heroin is never mentioned – except for
poor, dumb Tommy). Renton informs us – in voiceover – that this time, he’s
going to quit the junk for sure – and informs us how exactly he’s going to go
ahead and do that. It works – but only for a bit. He’ll be back on it again
soon, perhaps because whether he’s stoned or not, he ends up doing the same
thing – hanging out with his idiot friends, drinking, going to bars, and not
working. IF he’s on heroin, he’s got no sex drive – but when he’s off, and he
does meet a girl (Kelly McDonald) – and goes home with her, it turns out she’s
s high school student.
Renton drifts on and off drugs
throughout the film, and as our narrator, he certainly does maintain a certain
degree of our sympathy. But he isn’t wholly honest with the audience either –
or perhaps, he thinks he is, and isn’t being honest with himself. Aside than
Baby Dawn, the other death in the film is that of Tommy (Kevin McKidd) – and
while Renton never even hints at any guilty feelings towards Tommy’s death – he
clearly set it in motion not once, but twice – first by stealing the sex tape
Tommy and his girlfriend made together – and whose absence causes his
girlfriend to leave Tommy, and sink into depression, and second by hooking him
up with heroin for the first time because of that depression. But if Renton is
an asshole, we continue to like him in part because Sick Boy and especially
Begbie (Robert Carlyle) – a psychopath who picks fights with any and every one
– are even worse. The last third of the movie is the only part with anything
resembling a real plot – as Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud – all go in on a
big drug deal, although watching the film again, I was surprised by just how
little this “big score” really was.
Trainspotting ended up becoming
one of the quintessential examples of ‘90s movies – a film that became a huge
cult hit on VHS, and whose posters adorned quite a few dorm rooms over the
years. Like many films of that time, its debt to Scorsese is obvious –
particularly GoodFellas, which had just come out 6 years earlier. But Boyle –
making just his second film (following 1994’s Shallow Grave) amped up the
energy even more. He is aided a great deal by his cast – especially McGregor,
who seemed to be DeNiro to Boyle’s Scorsese for a while, until a falling out
over The Beach (2000) led them not to work together until the upcoming T2:
Trainspotting sequel. That’s a shame, because as good of an actor as McGregor
is, he’s rarely been as good as he was here – he’s slimmer than normal here,
angrier, with more than a little danger to him. He has the swagger necessary to
pull this film off.
Of course, as with many things in
Hollywood, what once seemed dangerous and edgy has now fully become part of the
system – especially perhaps Boyle and McGregor, neither of whom you would
describe that way now. But it felt that way in 1996 – and looking back at the
film now, knowing where everyone would end up, I can still see that raw energy
that made it so exciting to me then – even if I see the emptiness in the
characters more now than I did then. There are some films that are timeless
classics – beloved by all, that are universal in nature, and will remain
classics long after everyone involved them – even as their initial audience –
has come and gone. And then there are films that are tied to a specific time
and place, and whose impact is harder to see for younger generations. I think
Trainspotting is the later – and I don’t really mean that as an insult.
