Whoa!

Rating: 9/10 (30 May 1999)

This movie deals with some of the most frightening and disgusting subjects imaginable; it has sex, rock, and especially drugs and yet is wonderful. While other films try desperately to interject youth and cutting-edge displays of bad taste, this movie is wonderfully alive even while its subjects are killing themselves. "Objectionable material," which I certainly was turned off by at first, turns out to be nothing more than an intimate and realistic portrayal of the sad and sometimes exciting lives of those Scottish youth. Thought-provoking in every way and extremely enjoyable in others, it brings us characters that we would rather not deal with and makes us feel for them in a way no other film can. All the performances were wonderful, especially (as is often commented on, and rightly so) Mr. McGregor's fantastic work. It is only a testament to his prowess that I saw Trainspotting (and him) the very day before I went to see him as Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace and was not uniquely distracted.