Before He Had The High Ground, Ewan McGregor Was Doing Tremendous Acting In The Bleak Classic Trainspotting

Little did avid moviegoers in the 1990's realize how many of the movies they were watching from then unknown filmmakers would turn out to be the start of careers that would forever change the face of cinema. The early part of this decade had the likes of Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino all leap onto the silver screen and immediately leave their mark on the artform they loved in a way that is still being felt and influencing new filmmakers today. Lest you think all the early films from soon-to-be prolific filmmakers were limited to the early days of this decade, one of the middle years of this decade (1996) delivered the first movie from Wes Anderson and the second feature film from one Danny Boyle.


The second motion picture he would direct was Trainspotting, a film from the United Kingdom that took an unfiltered look at a few young delinquents who love Heroin and causing illegal mayhem to anyone unlucky enough to wander in their path. Why do they do this? Well, their idea of life seems to align nicely with how Mr. Peanutbutter from BoJack Horseman feels you can achieve happiness: "The key to being happy isn't to search for meaning, it's just to keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense and eventually, you'll be dead." Thus, the lives of these guys is absolutely packed with unimportant nonsense revolving around drug use.

Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is one of these troublemakers, a guy who has just enough clarity to realize that a life of heroin addiction isn't the ideal path for a fulfilling life but still lacks the clarity to ever fully commit to the multiple times he's tried to kick his drug habits. The guy is stuck in an endless cycle of pain and crime and any tragic events stemming from the actions of him and his friend fail to get him to clean up his act and instead toss him further down into the pit of debauchery he has encased himself in. Some of his pals in this lifestyle are the dim-witted Spud (Ewen Bremner), Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) and the crazed violent fella of the group Begbie (Robert Carlyle).

Trainspotting is utterly fascinating in the way it depicts the actions of its lead characters. It never feels like it's glamorizing the degeneracy Mark and his pals engage in, one never gets the sense Danny Boyle is turning the camera on these people so we can stand in awe of how "cool" it is that they're bending the rules and what not. Instead, there's a pervasively tragic quality to them, as you can recognize universally human traits in these guys that is getting suffocated by the cycle of addiction and bad decisions they choose to get into. Every time life offers them a door that'll allow them to walk away from their decisions, they just slam the door and maybe paint some profane graffiti on it.

That element of humanity in Trainspotting is what keeps it so fascinating, as John Hodge's screenplay gets inside the psyche of people that general individuals likely wouldn't want to spend too much time alone in a room with. It isn't just in the writing that the movie manages to examine what makes its various lead characters tick, as the camerawork also places the viewer right into the middle of all the profligacy. Sometimes this happens when the camera is placed right into the middle of bursts of activity (notice early on how the camera is situated on a counter where Mark is plopping down various items he just bought at the grocery store), other times the camera replicates the actual point-of-view of certain individuals in the story.

This is when we get to (literally) see the world of Trainspotting from the perspective from its lead character and it's a frazzled, frequently heroin-affected vision of one's surroundings. Just like the camerawork, the fast-paced editing by Masahiro Hirakubo replicates the unique psyche of Mark and his buddies, meaning the entire visual scheme of Trainspotting bursts with this boisterous and unique kinetic energy that matches the type of drug and crime fueled vibrancy the lead characters are constantly experiencing. All of these production traits coalesce to make Trainspotting feel like a one-of-a-kind movie, one that's very much in tune with its own unique rhythm that helps the audience further understands what is going in the mindset of its protagonists.

In only his fourth acting credit, as well as his first lead role, Ewan McGregor proves that he's been a sublime actor from the very start of his career, playing the various parts of Mark Renton's personality incredible well. There is actually a person underneath Mark Renton's immoral exterior and Ewan McGregor is able to unearth that humanity in Renton even in his lowest moments as a character, lending Mark Renton with this layered personality (one where sincere recognition of his misdeeds gets combined with an unquenchable thirst for heroin and mischief) that makes him feel like an actual human being. McGregor's acting, and the performances from the actors playing his characters chums, all make the leads of Trainspotting far more than just caricatures, they're aching human beings who have become far too dependent on cruelty to feed their souls.

It's rare to find a piece of pop culture that is able to make degeneracy so simultaneously riveting and tragic but that's exactly what Trainspotting does so flawlessly. With only his second movie, Danny Boyle is able to utilize John Hodge's incredible script to create a movie that makes the lives of drug-addled youth utterly enthralling. This is a movie that isn't afriad to go bold, go distinctive and go in fascinating storytelling directions, all in the name of crafting a bleakly humorous examination of its lead characters in an introspective way. Always remember to choose life, choose a future and to choose Trainspotting when you're in the mood for some top-notch cinema!