Mark Renton and his mates Sick Boy and Spud, are heroin addicts in Edinburgh, Scotland. After the constant nagging of their friends Franco and Tommy, as well as Renton’s parents, the trio attempt to wean off of their addiction but have trouble reintegrating with society. They turn back to dope and fall down a path of bad decisions and an increasingly devastating consequences. Eventually, Renton is caught shoplifting and ODs. His parents lock him in his room where he undergoes a painful withdrawal. On the other side, he moves to London and starts to build a new life buried in work. He finds some degree of contentment but his old friends and old ways begin to creep back into his life. Amidst the backdrop of the growing AIDS epidemic and Scottish squalor, Renton must decide how to handle the irritating pull back to his darkest days.
I’ve never liked “drug movies” but I loved this film. I find that the depiction of drug use in film is either fabulously far-out or an excruciating slog. Danny Boyle constructs a world which is kind of both, but more. This film is depressingly psychedelic and features some beyond uncomfortable imagery. And yet, the script has this dark humor and uncomfortable levity that respects this horror while balancing the film’s personality. Ewan McGregor and team paint this charming, amusing, heartbreaking, picture of friends—who aren’t really tight friends but a collection of forgotten souls who rave and rant over each others addictions. And Scotland, the uncredited star, shined through even this unglamorous portrayal. The static, beautiful, sparse shot of the highlands contrasted fabulously with Boyle’s kinetic, twisted, and terrifying sets and beyond-real drug sequences. Finally, as with “Requiem”, I left this film challenged to think about all the ways we distract ourselves from the unfair and un-amusing...from the painful realities of life.