Choose Welsh

Rating: 6/10 (26 July 2005)

Trainspotting remains in style faithful to the book by Irvine Welsh, but sometimes deviates from it. For example the end is very different because here Renton comes out clean and 'normal' but in the book he stays on to be a junkie. The movie has the same punk-like edgy form as the book and is well translated to screen: Fast edited sequences, it radiates energy, breaks its own form (fantasy elements), cultural landscapes changing and even a balanced view on drugs. The many excrement scenes are not for everybody's taste, but shows only the filth sometimes associated with drug use.
The characters are rather unbelievable as junkies. Here they remain clean-shaven, relatively fresh-looking, social and to an extent trustworthy people, where real users have the opposite characteristics. And the sometimes beautiful, long sentences coming out of the mouths of some characters being linguistically deprived are not very believable either. But the "Choose Life"-voice over narration in the beginning is still great.
It has intelligent storytelling, for example how AIDS is first introduced by means of the quiz and the fact that Renton in one scene already puts his passport in a locker. The change in music and drug culture is well done here.But from the London-part onwards the best parts are gone and it transforms more into a buddy-movie with a twist.