Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else.
‘70s pop, Iggy pop, and Britpop are what the lust for life sounds like while heroin is playing in the background. There is an impalpable sense of contradistinction in Trainspotting (1996) as audiences get so enraptured by the music and Director Danny Boyle’s rapid jump cuts, zoom shots, and freeze frames that they end up lost in the same false promises of addiction as the so-called “protagonists.”
Even more enigmatic, the hooligans we follow are downright likable in their own scrappy, pathetic way. Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner), “Franco” (Robert Carlyle), and Tommy (Kevin McKidd) form one of the most endearing buddy circles captured on film. There is only one thing that stands between them.
Make no mistake, Senator Bob Dole: Trainspotting does not glorify drug use. Rather, Trainspotting humanizes drug use and rockets through its popified ups and hellacious lows. It drenches its characters in “the worst toilet in Scotland,” dumps their overdosed bodies on urgent care sidewalks, and scares them stupid as they suffer withdrawals in bed. (I won’t even mention the darkest scene.)
The upbeat music is a sensational contradiction like it was to Pulp Fiction’s violence two years prior and Goodfellas‘s mob romanticism four years prior to that.
Think of Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Blur, and Pulp as Dr. Jekyll to heroin’s Mr. Hyde. Trainspotting’s soundtrack is astounding, and the crux for appreciating it is found in audience maturity, a grave R rating, and thick, movie-seasoned skin.
I appreciated Trainspotting during three chronological phases in my life: It was inclusively cool during college (even though we didn’t have digital subtitles to clarify the thick Scottish accents); it evolved into something depressingly grim as an older adult; and, after my last viewing during the COVID era, I found it charmingly sympathetic. The truth is: these are not bad guys; these are sick and delusional guys.
The squalor of Edinburgh provides no relief. Neither does friendship in the end. The question always is: Does Mark finally get out of the lust for life, or does he smile his way back in with Underworld’s “Born Slippy” playing in the background? I was one of the few who enjoyed Danny Boyle’s postlude in T2 (2017) because it portrays the inevitability of those who continue falling down the dark hole and the light for those who dig out of it.
Whether it be the grimiest of holes or the clearest top of a mountain, the music is the same. It is all relative. Some movies can move you. Others can throw you. This one catapults you to the sound of pop.
Trainspotting is not for everyone, but it is certainly a part of my cinematic life. (I’ve got the soundtrack on CD in my car right now.)
Reely Bernie Faves:
5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
6. The Godfather Part II (1974)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
10. Nosferatu (1922)
11. Pollock (2000)
12. Kicking and Screaming (1995)
13. Jaws (1975)
14. Fargo (1996)
16. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
20. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
23. King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
24. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
25. Bambi (1942)
26. The Paradise Lost Trilogy (1996-2011)
27. Psycho (1960)
29. Swingers (1996)
30. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
31. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
32. Smoke (1995)
33. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
35. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
37. 1917 (2019)
42. If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
43. The Greatest Showman (2017)
44. National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)
45. The Florida Project (2017)
Reely Bernie 
Very humanizing and relatable indeed. I guess it probably depends on your life experience, but when I saw this one in high school, it felt real and alive and remained a favorite for years. I still get seriously giddy anytime I hear Born Slippy. I remember the movie feeling quite optimistic despite all the bad trips. I will have to rewatch, I’m eager to see how I respond now in my stable 30s.
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I’m curious how you feel as well. Today, I just felt for the poor chaps. The irresponsible “coolness” has worn off. Yet, like you, Born Slippy brings something giddy, maybe in the fact that I’ve become stable too and can enjoy being nostalgic. Thank you for sharing!
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I think I saw it, but my memory is blank … I do remember that the hubub surrounding Ewan McGregor’s dangly bits left a certain strata of society quivering with voyeristic existential horror 😀
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Haha, so funny the things we remember. You are correct – the bits were there. Do you remember the baby on the ceiling?
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‘Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else.’
I had the same perspective for much of my early adulthood, which was a bad move! Haha
Nice choice Bernie. His abstinence scenes and the baby crawling the roof is one for the ages re. the subject matter.
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Yeah, there are reckless days that can relate to these chaps, for sure. But, wow, that scene with the baby tops them all when it comes to “scared stupid.” Danny Boyle fits a lot into these 93 minutes…
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One of the greats. We must be a similar age. I worked in. VHS factory in the year this came out. The Pirated copies that changed hands down the docks for swift divers and pints of brown ale were legend.
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I worked at Blockbuster 1997-2001. Trainspotting was marketed so well. I had never seen anything like it. Pirates copies, eh? That’s the priceless indie video store perk. Good days.
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