Brutally in-your-face drama

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2014)

Becoming something of a British cult-classic, Trainspotting successfully brought a relatively young Ewan McGregor into the public eye and told a gritty and realistic story about hardcore drug use. Ewan plays a young man called Renton, who is severely addicted to heroin amidst the Edinburgh drug scene. Fairly early on, Renton attempts to escape the vices which hold him by going 'cold turkey'...but fails on numerous occasions. All around him, Renton consistently sees his friends succumb to the allure of hard drugs; each with varying outcomes. It isn't till a life-threatening incident which causes Renton's parents to intervene, that a light at the end of the tunnel begins to appear.
There's no doubt that Trainspotting is a brutally in-your-face portrayal of what taking drugs will lead to. At no point does it advocate or glorify the abuse of substances, not too dissimilar to the incredible Requiem for a Dream. There's a single shot of the film which will now be permanently burned into my mind, and rightfully so, because to say this film is "one-sided" would mean condoning the use of substances, which has consistently been shown to lead to disastrous outcomes.
Despite all this, Trainspotting is also a slightly humorous black-comedy, with comedic moments placed throughout. That's not to say it's a laugh-a-minute film that'll have you smiling from start to finish, far from it, but certain characters such as Renton's friends Spud (Ewen Bremner) and the scarily aggressive Begbie (Robert Carlyle) occasionally provide comic relief to alleviate the very dark tone.
The only real problem I have with Trainspotting is that it doesn't really wrap-up as conclusively as I'd have liked it to. I expected to have some sort of conclusion to at least the main characters, but sadly that doesn't happen. The ending is far from bad, it just isn't as definitive as I would have expected it to be.