An “extraordinary achievement and a breakthrough British film” said the Guardian’s film critic Derek Malcolm in his review of Trainspotting - a low budget film about Edinburgh’s grotty heroin scene that became a box office hit in 1996.
Directed by Danny Boyle, who made Shallow Grave two years earlier, Trainspotting’s success also helped further the careers of its cast, especially Ewan McGregor, who played “Rent Boy” Renton, one of a bunch of addicts who get caught up in a chaotic drug deal.
As well as critical acclaim, Trainspotting won a BAFTA award. It also got an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Boyle’s film was based on the first novel written by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. The Observer’s review of his book Trainspotting noted somewhat harshly in 1993 that he was ‘strong on the sub-poetry of slang and obscenity but struggles to emerge from the shadow of James Kelman’.
In the same year the Guardian interviewed Welsh, asking him about the book’s exploration of drug addiction. “I didn’t want to present the junkie as isolated or cut off. I wanted to focus on the relationships and cultural pressures surrounding these characters,” he said.
These themes were explored again a year later in the theatre production of Trainspotting, performed in Glasgow, which the Guardian reviewed.
The success of the film owed much to its soundtrack. The decision to include songs performed by Lou Reed (Perfect Day), Iggy Pop (Lust for Life) and Underworld (Born Slippy) went down well with fans.
One band that turned down the offer to contribute was Oasis. In 2016, Noel Gallagher was reported to have said that he rejected advances from Danny Boyle’s production team years earlier, saying “I would have done something, but honestly I thought it [the film] was about trainspotters. I didn’t know.”
