10/02/10 - Trainspotting

Trainspotting (1996, 94 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/

Okay, so Trainspotting doesn't meet the theme of this month at all. I didn't really want to see it but it was available due to a friend's Netflix so I decide to give it a watch. The short 94 minute runtime was the big selling point.

The movie follows a group of drug addicts living in Edinburgh. The main character and narrator is Renton (Ewan McGregor) while the rest of the group is composed of: Spud (Ewan Bremner), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Smaller roles are given to: Diane (Kelly Macdonald), a girlfriend of Renton; and Swanney (Peter Mullan), the drug supplier for the group.

The movies that Trainspotting most reminded me of were (probably somewhat naturally) Requiem for a Dream and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. There was a little bit of Snatch. thrown in there as well due to the setting. Anyway, I really like Requiem for a Dream but don't really like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Sadly, Trainspotting reminded me a bit more of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as it suffered from the same problems. Those problems? Characters and plot. First, the characters are pretty forgettable aside from Renton. Even watching the movie, I couldn't really feel much development of Sick Boy and Tommy. Spud is somewhat lovable in a goofy way while Begbie is such a jerk to everyone he's impossible to like. But they're all fundamentally flat characters and I never find myself rooting for Renton. He fails too much in his "recovery" for me to want him to succeed at anything so I feel pretty blasé about everyone. Next, the plot is similar to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in that it's like a picaresque. The characters are pulled from one adventure to another. There's some timeline issues as the movie tells the story out of order (somewhat pointlessly in my opinion) but it's pretty much just: event, interlude, event, interlude, event, etc. The interludes are boring and the events don't really do anything to build character or any other purpose. Again, I'm just uncaring on this aspect of the movie.

One thing that Trainspotting does do right is the weird trips for Renton when he's either on drugs or experiencing painful withdrawal symptoms. Here I was most vividly reminded of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (and a little bit of the more recent viewing of Pink Floyd The Wall). These scenes are freaky and weird and completely unsettling which is exactly the purpose that they are supposed to serve. I think the movie succeeded wonderfully here. However, just like my complaint about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - you can't build a movie solely on these scenes.

Overall, I gave this film a 4/10. In short, I just wasn't impressed. Well, except for a few short bits here and there. Requiem for a Dream focuses on just a few characters and explores complicated character arcs for each. Trainspotting throws out a lot of characters and doesn't do much with any of them.