Boyle's best

Rating: 8/10 (1 February 2004)

Irvine Welsh's cult novel 'Trainspotting' is the grim, irreverent and defiant story of Edinburgh's drug-addled counter-culture, told in a fierce Edinburgh patois. The achievement of Danny Boyle's film is its reinterpretation of what is a decidedly literary accomplishment in a cinematic form while nonetheless staying true to the spirit of the book. Ewan McGregor is excellent is a lead role that grants no glamour to its star, while Robert Carlyle is hilarious as his psychopathic 'friend'. Indeed, the easy way in which the film combines humour and the lowest depths of the junkie life is very impressive, although (perhaps inevitably) the overall tone is slightly less grim (and somewhat more crowd-pleasing) than that of the original. Incidentally, while the true nature of its enigmatic title, 'Trainspotting', lurks in an excised chapter of the novel, those of a mountain-spotting persuasion will recognise an appearance by Leum Uillam in a minor role.