Choose life

Rating: 8/10 (19 December 2016)

Trainspotting is a magnetic, exhilarating, repulsive film based in a seedy underbelly of Edinburgh where thieves, drug addicts and violent type underclass live in doss houses with babies crawling round innocently unaware of the dangers they face.
Renton (Ewan McGregor) is a heroin addict living day to day stealing and looking for that hit. It is an empty life and he realises he needs to kick the habit but each time he tries to get off heroin something drags him back. Renton experiences the high side of heroin but knows the low side is too high a price to pay and his friends and associates are making it difficult for him to stay clean.
Director Danny Boyle infused the film with kinetic energy helped by its soundtrack, it is trippy, disjointed, hip even amoral in places but despite its cool reputation it shows the ugliness of addiction especially as the character of Tommy who is a fitness fanatic and clean but turns to drugs when his girlfriend leaves him and dies a horrible death.
Like the movie A Clockwork Orange the film is driven by the narration of its central character which keeps the story together and brings out the dark humour.
I only saw the film for the first time twenty years after its cinema release and was impressed how well it has stood up to the test of time.