Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting is fast, funny and frightening, and we recommend it warmly. The actors keep its Edinburgh addicts human, though the editing sometimes rushes past suffering that needs more time.
Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting is a funny, punishing film about heroin addiction, and we recommend it warmly. It understands why anyone might keep returning to bad company: these Edinburgh men enjoy being together, even when their lives are exhausting. Boyle gives the humour room to work, trusting us to notice what the routine costs them. Much of the film’s force comes from the repeated business of getting through another day.
Ewan McGregor makes Renton engaging enough that we do not spend the film congratulating ourselves on being more sensible than he is. His ease with the humour makes the group’s repetitive life briefly seem bearable. Ewen Bremner’s Spud and Robert Carlyle’s Begbie have sharply different comic presences, and Boyle lets those differences unsettle the tone. We laughed at the men’s jokes, then felt uncomfortable about how quickly we had accepted their daily routine. The camaraderie is appealing enough to make the prospect of leaving this group seem difficult.
Brian Tufano’s cinematography gives the men a visual polish which their behaviour hardly deserves. It is an effective choice: we look at them with an attention they might not get in a more dutiful social drama. Kave Quinn’s production design gives them surroundings that make the polished photography feel faintly indecent. The places they occupy are uncomfortable to contemplate, however well they photograph. Boyle occasionally seems too pleased with a visual flourish, especially when the actors could have held our attention without it.
Masahiro Hirakubo’s editing does more than keep things brisk. The movement between shared jokes and graphic unpleasantness keeps changing how much we want to be in this company, while the repeated routines show how little is changing for the men themselves. The soundtrack is an important part of that speed; the music helps make the abrupt changes in tone feel deliberate. We sometimes wished Hirakubo would wait longer after a shock. A quick return to speed can leave too little time to think about what has just happened.
John Hodge’s screenplay, adapted from Irvine Welsh’s novel, gives the humour a useful bluntness. These men do not seem to be explaining themselves for the benefit of an outsider, and their familiarity with one another saves the film a lot of exposition. The weakness is that the quick characterisation sometimes leaves the supporting men with little space beyond their contribution to the group. The performances make us want more of them. Hodge and Boyle could have afforded them a few quieter stretches, away from the pressure to produce another laugh or another jolt.
Drug dramas can become tedious when every scene seems to have been written to discourage imitation. Boyle allows the men to be funny and objectionable without demanding that we decide immediately how much sympathy each deserves. At 94 minutes, the film leaves little room for our attention to wander, though its graphic shocks deserve to be taken seriously. The humour helps keep the unpleasantness from becoming numbing. Watch it in one sitting, with someone who does not need the characters to be well behaved.
