My first thought after watching the movie tonight was where does the name for it come from. There’s trains occasionally in the movie but too rarely to justify the name. Well, anyway, a great piece. It’s directed by Danny Boyle who did Slumdog Millionaire as well. Both movies have a running scene, more about the other similarities below. While Slumdog Millionaire is pretty much the typical Hollywood film, Trainspotting is something else.
The movie is very much fun, especially the beginning. My favourite part was when the four guys went to a club, each picked up a women of choice and everyone ended up rather differently. Similar juxtaposition happens between Renton, the main character, and the other guys elsewhere in the movie as well. Though not always in a comical light. The movie works well as an anti-drugs film. The world of a junkie is portrayed humoristically but, I would quess, pretty accurately. The dead baby is the most gruesome thing in the movie. But even his death is set in an ironic light soon after as the mother shoots herself up, though of course only after Renton does so.
Having seen Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire last week I couldn’t help put notice some similarities. First of all both had quite a disgusting bathroom. In Trainspotting the main character visits “the worst can in Scotland” and while trying to find a couple of pills he managed to drop into the can he actually dives into it and swims to get the pills. These sorts of jumps into the imagination happen elsewhere in the movie as well. Anyway, in Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal, the main character, gets locked into a bathroom while his favorite movie actor lands nearby. The bathroom which Jamal is locked into is more a shack with a hole in the bottom. Jamal escapes the bathroom by jumping into a gigantic pile of shit. He then goes, all covered in shit, and gets a signature onto a picture of the actor . In Trainspotting a whole family gets soiled by Spud. I’ve only seen two of Boyle’s movies, but looking at these two I’m starting to see a pattern here.
Another thing, which the review on Spill.com pointed out, is that regardles of genre all of Boyle’s movies turn into a crime-movie at some part. In Trainspotting there’s the drug deal at the end and in Slumdog Millionaire Salim gets involved with a crime organization. Perhaps Boyle would really want to direct crime-films, but no one wants to hire him for one of them and so he has to stick a crime sequence where he can fit them. The crime sequence did bring the movie to a dramatic end so it served it’s purpose. The movie is pretty much a must-see film. So if you haven’t seen it get seeing!
(If you like Rome, Kevin McKidd, who plays Lucius Vorenus, is in this film as well)
Nerdrant 