Trainspotting

“Choose life…but why would I do a thing like that?”  In Trainspotting, Renton and his friends have instead chosen heroin.  It’s not glamorous, in fact it’s downright gritty, filled with hardship and heartache.  They lie, steal and screw people over for one more hit, that ever elusive euphoric moment of pure pleasure.  Renton is starting to understand he can’t carry on like that forever and slowly tries to change his life.  But that isn’t so easy when your only friends are still shooting up.

Renton (Ewan McGregor) is our main character, a skinny junkie in Edinburgh.  He narrates with his cocky, thick Scottish accent, to give us more insight to his decisions and feelings on drug use.  He shows us his friends: Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) and Spud (Ewen Bremner) are fellow addicts.  Sick Boy is more of a leader while Spud is a sincerely lost guy, just sticking by his friends.  Tommy (Kevin McKidd) starts off as a clean cut guy who chooses working out over drugs, until his girlfriend dumps him.  And Bigbie (Robert Carlyle) gets off more on physical violence.  It’s amazing how he can carelessly instigating bar fights.

I didn’t expect this film to dabble in surrealism, but some of those moments were the most vivid and memorable.  They also help us to understand Renton’s mind under the influence.  As he fishes in a nasty toilet of his own fresh feces, we see him climb in and then swim around in crystal blue waters for what he’s looking for.  It emphasizes the importance and grandeur of looking for the drugs he just….expelled.  It’s a wonderfully gross, yet engrossing scene.

One of my favorite scenes is after Renton’s parents bring him home after an accidental overdose.  They lock him in his childhood bedroom to give him time to let the drugs wear off.  But this isn’t a simple cleanse, his mind runs wild with hallucinations fueled by his guilt: one of his friends rattling chains against his door, a baby crawling across the ceiling.  The whole scene is very intense and unsettling, making us understand Renton’s mental and physical anguish as he the drugs wear off his body.

The correlation between drugs and sex in the film is very interesting.  Characters regularly use one for the other to get their chosen highs.  For Renton, he goes between the two and he experiences the highs in very different ways.  Perhaps some of the characters, particularly Spud, whose girlfriend holds out for fun, choose drugs in place of sex.  One without the other seems to work for these guys for the most part.  Unfortunately, we see the grim results for those who mingle the two too closely for too long.

Trainspotting seems to be a very under-appreciated film.  At the Oscars, it was only nominated for adapted screenplay.  Yet, it is currently ranked at #146 on IMDB.  This film holds its own against the best picture nominees of 1996, and I can see it trading places with any of them.  All the acting is solid and believable and Danny Boyle’s direction holds such a vibrant energy, like smack running through fresh veins.

Trainspotting may not be for everyone.  We watch these guys do some hard drugs, nearly waste away into their high energy lifestyle and see some disturbing images that could make the most far gone sober up immediately.  For a film fan, it is one to seek out.  It’s considered one of the best British films, and I believe it is very accessible for most Americans.  This film helped project both Boyle and McGregor into star status.  The quick editing, high energy actors, lively sets all just add up to an unforgettable film experience.

“This was to be my final hit, but let’s be clear about this.  There’s final hits and final hits.  What kind was this to be?”

The Full Monty

My husband did not want to watch The Full Monty with me.  I think he imagined it to be filled with naked men running around shaking their goods with a British accent.  He watched the entire film with me and hardly had a fit, but he won’t admit to liking it yet.  Believe me, if he didn’t like it, he would have left and played video games, no problem; but he did stay till the very end, which makes a stronger recommendation for men than I could make by myself.

There’s so much more at stake here than just the taboos of male stripping.  The mill that used to be the main job source in town is closed and none of the men can find jobs.  They spend their time in a sad little jobs center, stealing scrap metal and drinking.  With all the women able to work and support themselves, their male counterparts feel inferior and to add insult to injury, a one night strip act excites the ladies more than their men.  The whole idea to become strippers came from Gaz (Robert Carlyle) who wants to start stripping so he can pay for custody of his son, Nathan (William Snape) who’s alongside the men for support and working the boombox.  His friend Dave (Mark Addy) is hesitant due to his pudginess and their lack of any dance skills.  When they find out their old boss Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) is taking ballroom dancing with his wife, they recruit him to learn some moves.  Gerald is desperate for money since he’s been out of work six months and hasn’t told his wife yet.  So the three men plus little Nathan learn to dance, recruit three more dance members and become the talk of the town.

The way The Full Monty flips the gender roles is wonderful.  Society is accustomed to women being desperate enough to strip, not men, certainly not this bunch.  These men are pale, skinny, old and fat.  One can pass for the typical male stripper, but he makes his pals look worse.  In a scene where the guys glance through a nudy magazine, they pass their judgments, “Her boobs could be smaller.”  Dave makes the haunting revelation that women will be passing the same judgments on them.  Suddenly, Horse (Paul Barber), the graying black guy, is frantically calling the company who produces an enhancement device, frantic that it isn’t working.

The member who is most self conscious is Dave.  From the beginning he knows he’s the fattest member of the group and immediately classifies himself as hopeless.  It gets so bad for him that he drops out of the group and can’t even find enough spunk in himself to be intimate with his girlfriend, who’s never said a negative word about him.  He’s told, “Fat, David, is a feminist issue.”  Clearly not.  The negative self body image isn’t just a woman’s problem, and that’s one of the best things about this film.  Even better, is when the ladies love Dave’s full body and he’s ballsy enough to strut his stuff.

The Full Monty is fun, hilarious, uplifting and a great time.  The material could have easily turned into a pointless sex romp, but the desperation of the situation gives the story a well rounded body.  If you can stand the adult themes and seeing a few guys butts I recommend this.  Really, in half the time of Titanic you will have twice the fun and triple the laughs.

“No one said anything to me about the full monty!”