The Movie is About Outgrowing Your Friends First, Drugs Second

Rating: 10/10 (3 August 2005)

I think the easy thing to do is to paint this picture with a broad brush and say it is about drugs. A more accurate thing to say would be that this movie is about a young man (Renton) outgrowing his home and his friends, leaving them behind to pursue a better life.
The movie got noticed in large part because there were those that said it glamorized drug use. Well, yes, drug use IS glamorous and fun, sometimes. If it wasn't people wouldn't use them, but lots of people do. Of course, with that lifestyle comes risk that can result in tragedy(Tommy), or difficult withdrawal (Renton). For many though, using drugs is just something you do as a young person, a product of having too much idle time, and no responsibilities and/or prospects, and doesn't really come with any dramatic result or end to it (as is the case with Sick Boy and Spud).
Ultimately though, this story is not about drugs. The main plot point of the movie is Mark Renton slowly realizing that his association with and loyalty to his loser friends is dragging him down, and that in order to cast off the limits his dead-end life in Scotland has set on him, he needs to get off drugs, move to London, and make a new life.
When his friends follow him there, he is faced with a choice of slipping back into mediocrity with them, or screwing them over and in the process cutting ties with them forever. He concludes he is better off without them, which he is, and steals their money, realizing full well and probably happy that it means he will never see them again if he has anything to say about it.
Like another movie made shortly after, "Good Will Hunting", this is a movie about a young man in a bad situation learning he can make something more out of his life if he goes his own way. It's not as touchy feely as GWH, but it is the same general concept.