Choose life.

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2016)

Trainspotting was labelled as both anti and pro drug when it was first released. The latter is somewhat baffling but I'm sure some of it must come from Ewan McGregor's enthusiastic opening and closing mantra which bookends the film. The funny thing is the abruptness of the tone of this short monologue and how it has shifted over an hour and a half. The film's soundtrack is like background club music, constantly pulsing and pumping as these Scottish addicts go about their aimless lives. That's how Renton sees this safe, domestic path of life - aimless, boring. Then at the end he has the same words, and I'm sure that he feels the same way too. But there's no longer that spitting derision that he once had. There's a resignation to his voice; this way may be boring and uneventful, but at least it is not life-threatening.
Much has been made of Boyle's breakneck, irreverent style - the way the camera seems to be always rushing to the next hit like the gang is, the rough, offbeat performances, the brooding, ominous way the walls of their den have been colour-coded. Boyle never seems to really want to slow down, and here is where he hits somewhat of a snag. While the gang are deep into their addiction this style is hard-hitting, perfectly mimicking the wild world of the addict and their twisted logic. Their eccentricities are blown up in a hilarious sequence which cuts across each of their sexual encounters on one night. And then this makes it all the more appropriate and shocking when Dawn is found dead due to neglect - the walls cave in on them, the discovery creeps up on them like it does for us. But even as Renton goes clean (and the mis-en-scene is suddenly a lot cleaner, a lot brighter, a lot less grimy) the film still goes ahead at breakneck speed and is still setting up the punchlines. It is as if Renton cannot escape his dreaded past.
Going clean seems a little easy for Renton. As if to note this, the script keeps pointing and nudging his way towards heroin once again. A big deal for all the product they could ever want to last them a lifetime, and guess who has to test its quality. But it isn't really presented as a mountain sized temptation and challenge, but more of an inconvenience. It's funny when he stacks up the piles of cans and nails himself into a room to quit once and for all (we sense this is a regular routine), and mildly horrifying when Boyle goes surreal as Renton, bedridden, pleads for just one more hit. For all the subject matter it feels a little safe, a little content to hide behind the stylistic touches that gives the film much of its energy - using a flurry of cuts for mundane occurrences like drinking milkshakes, throwing in dutch angles that flip around to reveal reflections, dollying along the nightmarish elongated room (or prison).
What Boyle does nail is the youth culture of these Scots - there is no un-turned stone, no missed opportunity to make this lifestyle as frenetic and attractive as it can be. They inhabit dreary, run-down shacks, they beat up posh Americans in bar bathrooms, their bodies are withered and eyes darting. The dialogue, with its thick, Scottish dialect, is perhaps the film's greatest and restrictive trait - by not cutting down on any of these character's personalities and eccentricities (some moments even have subtitles) we view and experience the world in the same twisted way they do; the botched interviews, the way the mind warps toilets into filthy experiences, the way they cheer like juveniles when they deal with forces much larger than they are and get away with a small fortune. It's almost too convincing, which is why it seems a little strange when Renton quietly slips out the back.