A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them...

The film that effectively launched the star careers of Robert Carlyle, Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller is a hard, barbed picaresque, culled from the bestseller by Irvine Welsh and thrown down against the heroin hinterlands of Edinburgh. Directed with abandon by Danny Boyle, Trainspotting conspires to be at once a hip youth flick and a grim cautionary fable. Released on an unsuspecting public in 1996, the picture struck a chord with audiences worldwide and became adopted as an instant symbol of a booming British rave culture (an irony, given the characters' main drug of choice is heroin not ecstasy). McGregor, Lee Miller and Ewen Bremner play a slouching trio of Scottish junkies; Carlyle their narcotic-eschewing but hard-drinking and generally psychotic mate Begbie. In Boyle's hands, their lives unfold in a rush of euphoric highs, blow-out overdoses and agonising withdrawals (all cued to a vogueish pop soundtrack). Throughout it all, John Hodge's screenplay strikes a delicate balance between acknowledging the inherent pleasures of drug use and spotlighting its eventual consequences. In Trainspotting's world view, it all comes down to a question of choices--between the dangerous Day-Glo highs of the addict and the grey, grinding consumerism of the everyday Joe. "Choose life", quips the film's narrator (McGregor) in a monologue that was to become a mantra. "Choose a job, choose a starter home... But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?" Ultimately, Trainspotting's wised-up, dead-beat inhabitants reject mainstream society in favour of a headlong rush to destruction. It makes for an exhilarating, energised and frequently terrifying trip that blazes with more energy and passion than a thousand more ostensibly life-embracing movies. --Xan Brooks

Those who have ventured into the darker corners of addiction know that one of its few consolations, once the fun has worn off, is the camaraderie with fellow practitioners. Substance abuse sets the user apart from the daily lives of ordinary people. No matter how well the addict may seem to be functioning, there is always the secret agenda, the knowledge that the drug of choice is more important than the mundane business at hand, such as friends, family, jobs, play and sex. Because no one can really understand that urgency as well as another addict, there is a shared humor, desperation and understanding among users. There is even a relief: Lies and evasions are unnecessary among friends who share the same needs. ``Trainspotting'' knows that truth in its very bones. The movie has been attacked as pro-drug and defended as anti-drug, but actually it is simply pragmatic. It knows that addiction leads to an unmanageable, exhausting, intensely uncomfortable daily routine, and it knows that only two things make it bearable: a supply of the drug of choice, and the understanding of fellow addicts. Former alcoholics and drug abusers often report that they don't miss the substances nearly as much as the conditions under which they were used--the camaraderie of the true drinkers' bar, for example, where the standing joke is that the straight world just doesn't get it, doesn't understand that the disease is life and the treatment is another drink. The reason there is a fierce joy in ``Trainspotting,'' despite the appalling things that happen in it, is that it's basically about friends in need.The movie, based on a popular novel by Irvine Welsh, is about a crowd of heroin addicts who run together in Edinburgh. The story is narrated by Renton (Ewan McGregor), who will, and does, dive into ``the filthiest toilet in Scotland'' in search of mislaid drugs. He introduces us to his friends, including Spud (Ewen Bremner), who confronts a job interview panel with a selection of their worst nightmares; Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), whose theories about Sean Connery do not seem to flow from ever having seen his movies sober; Tommy (Kevin McKidd), who returns to drugs one time too many, and Begbie (Robert Carlyle), who brags about not using drugs but is a psychotic who throws beer mugs at bar patrons. What a lad, that Begbie. These friends sleep where they can--in bars, in squats, in the beds of girls they meet at dance clubs. They have assorted girlfriends, and there is even a baby in the movie, but they are not settled in any way, and no place is home. Near the beginning of the film, Renton decides to clean up, and nails himself into a room with soup, ice cream, milk of magnesia, Valium, water, a TV set, and buckets for urine, feces, and vomit. Soon the nails have been ripped from the door jambs, but eventually Renton does detox (``I don't feel the sickness yet but it's in the mail, that's for sure''), and he even goes straight for a while, taking a job in London as a rental agent. But his friends find him, a promising drug deal comes along, and in one of the most disturbing images in the movie, Renton throws away his hard-earned sobriety by testing the drug, and declaring it... wonderful. No doubt about it, drugs do make him feel good. It's just that they make him feel bad all the rest of the time. ``What do drugs make you feel like?'' George Carlin asked. ``They make you feel like more drugs.'' The characters in ``Trainspotting'' are violent (they attack a tourist on the street) and carelessly amoral (no one, no matter how desperate, should regard a baby the way they seem to). The legends they rehearse about each other are all based on screwing up, causing pain, and taking outrageous steps to find or avoid drugs. One day they try to take a walk in the countryside, but such an ordinary action is far beyond their ability to perform. Strange, the cult following ``Trainspotting'' has generated in the UK, as a book, a play and a movie. It uses a colorful vocabulary, it contains a lot of energy, it elevates its miserable heroes to the status of icons (in their own eyes, that is), and it does evoke the Edinburgh drug landscape with a conviction that seems born of close observation. But what else does it do? Does it lead anywhere? Say anything? Not really. That's the whole point. Drug use is not linear but circular. You never get anywhere unless you keep returning to the starting point. But you make fierce friends along the way. Too bad if they die. --Roger Ebert

Exuberant and pitiless, profane yet eloquent, flush with the ability to create laughter out of unspeakable situations, "Trainspotting" is a drop-dead look at a dead-end lifestyle that has all the strength of its considerable contradictions. Set amid the junkies and thugs of Edinburgh's slums and made by the same team (director Danny Boyle, writer John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald) that turned out "Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting" caused a sensation in Britain, where it took in more money than any U.K. film except "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and ignited strong controversy over its attitude toward heroin. But more than drugs, "Trainspotting's" characters, who first appeared in an uncompromising novel by Irvine Welsh, are addicted to the rush of words. This is especially true of Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), the film's narrator, who unleashes an overpowering verbal torrent that gets things off to an aggressive, pulsating start. "Choose life," Renton insists in mocking voice-over as store detectives pursue him for shoplifting. "Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a [expletive] big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-income mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. . . . "But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?" Awash in attitude, this kind of "I'm not all right, Jack" nihilism struck a massive chord in Britain, where it tied into a national feeling of disconnection and uncertainty. Even without knowing the particulars, "Trainspotting" can't be viewed over here without sensing its immediacy, its intoxicating sense of now. What's even more difficult is resisting the film's terrific energy, how aggressively clever it manages to be. Though not interested in anything below the surface, "Trainspotting's" vivid colors and inviting Britpop soundtrack (featuring groups such as Blur, Elastica and Primal Scream) create a vibrancy that resembles the blackest possible version of Richard Lester's Beatles films. Though "Trainspotting's" style is all cheeky glibness, its subject matter is raw and raunchy, including AIDS, overdoses and unprovoked violence as well as obscene situations described in unprintable language. Truly this is a film that creates smiles out of things that can in no way be described as funny. How is this possible? For one thing, despite its subject matter, "Trainspotting" is not particularly interested in being realistic, in turning out a socially conscious kitchen-sink drama. Playful surrealism is more to its taste, as witness the film's signature scene, where Renton, in search of some lost opium suppositories, dives head-first into "the filthiest toilet in Scotland" and emerges in a sublime and spacious undersea world. And despite Renton's celebrated riff on the pleasures of heroin, boasting, "Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it," "Trainspotting" is only interested in drugs because its characters are. Being true to its ruthless people, to Renton and his scabrous mates, showing what motivates them and why they're drawn to drugs in the first place, is this film's touchstone. Most feeble of the lads is the glasses-wearing Spud (Ewen Bremner, Renton in the London stage version of the novel). Most devious is Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller, grandson of actor Bernard Lee, M in the James Bond films), who knows all there is to know about Sean Connery. Most innocent is Tommy (Kevin McKidd), whose insistence on telling the truth no matter what is viewed as a fatal weakness. And most dangerous is the beer-drinking, heroin-hating psychopath Begbie (a galvanic, thoroughly convincing performance by Robert Carlyle). Begbie, says Renton, "didn't do drugs, he did people." But he's part of the group, and can't be abandoned.The first half of "Trainspotting" is episodic, as these ultimate rude boys and their acquaintances (including a scuzzy dealer named Mikey Forrester, played by author Welsh) are introduced and placed in their drug-obsessed element. These sequences are the film's funniest, and include Renton's sudden passion for the mysterious Diane (Kelly Macdonald, discovered in an open casting call) and Tommy's attempt to get the boys interested in the outdoors, which leads to Renton's "I hate being Scottish" tirade, which memorably concludes: "Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by." No matter what Renton and his pals are up to, we stay interested because of these marvelous words, which won screenwriter Hodge the British Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, besting both "Sense and Sensibility" and "The Madness of King George." And though some of the words get lost in either local slang or thick Scottish accents, the script's most memorable flights invariably go to Renton, devoid of regret or remorse, wised up to the nth degree. His delight in language nicely balances his ruthlessness, and in McGregor (who lost nearly 30 pounds to play the part and will soon be seen in the very different "Emma") the film has an actor whose magnetism monopolizes our attention no matter what. McGregor's qualities are especially needed in the film's second half, which is considerably darker and noticeably less interested in laughter than what's come before. Welsh chose "Trainspotting" as the title for his novel to emphasize that heroin use is as futile an activity as writing down numbers of locomotives, and by the time this knowing film finishes, the aptness of that choice will not be in doubt. --KENNETH TURAN

Nominated:Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium

Won:Best Screenplay (Adapted)
Nominated:Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film

Won:British Actor of the Year - Ewan McGregor; British Screenwriter of the Year - John Hodge
Nominated:British Director of the Year; British Film of the Year

Nominated:Best Breakthrough Performance - Ewan McGregor

Won:Best Director; Best Film