"Who need reasons when you've got heroin?"

Rating: 7/10 (7 July 2019)

As you can see, I love the narration in Danny Boyle's ""Trainspotting". This is a film which understands the nature of drug addiction. The introductory voice-over by the needle-hopper Renton (Ewan McGregor) is surprisingly argumentative and intellectual. You get to understand and even relate to the victims of the needle. Not that I encourage drug consumption--absolutely not! Stay in school, kids!
"People think it's all about misery and desperation and death [...] but what they forget is the pleasure of it". This film is not pro-drug, but it is not anti-drug either. This is an unbiased, unpretentious, unpolished look at what is, in the end, an addiction like any other. "Trainspotting" does not bother with the classical moral mumbo-jumbo, it understands there is no point in arguing with a drug addict from a societal point of view. They become programmed, lost on emotions, completely overwhelmed by hitting the needle once again.
Renton, though, tries to get out of the lifestyle, and we are shown how he methodically prepares himself by locking himself in a room and barring the door. Not soon enough, that fails. No spoiler, come on, you didn't actually think it's going to be that easy. His deadbeat friends include the naive Spud (Ewen Bremmer), the "intellectual" Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and the short-tempered Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Renton always seems like he is more than them--he denotes a certain maturity but, because of his addiction, this is the best he can get.
Despite this raggedness and realism, "Trainspotting" has a few frustrating scenes, mostly the surreal ones. Take the scene in which Renton is in desperate need of number 2, so he finds a public bathroom in a bar. The disgusting way in which the bathroom is presented feels sensationalized and patronizing. I felt my stomach turning and there really was no need to push it even more (those that saw the film know what I'm talking about). Boyle then attempts an art-house surreal scene when Renton is locked in a room in his parents' house later in the film. Boyle is too much of a down-to-earth filmmaker to make surrealism stick here and the scene feels like a drag.
From a screenwriting point of view, Renton throws motives and justifications on why he needs drugs. It's easy--first because of curiosity, then because it feels good and now because he is addicted. Hearing the Scorsesian narration going along the lines of "we would have injected Vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal" nullifies all his initial reasoning. This didn't bother me that much, not as much as the last thirty minutes, anyway. Nothing really happens after this point except, of course, that nail-biting ending. That gave the film a sweet taste after watching it.
"Trainspotting" is a good film. Despite its occasional flaws, I respect it for its non-judgmental approach. Danny Boyle always knew how to relate to people struggling in life, whether they got to their lowest point by their own hands, or by fate. By keeping it unpolished, he made this one of the most effective examples.