Trainspotting and the depiction of addiction

Abstract

Trainspotting, the “best British film of the decade”, arrived on 23 February 1996. Such were the expectations of the film (1996) that the face of its narrator-hero Renton (Ewan McGregor) appeared that month on the front cover of two influential London-based film magazines, Premiere and Sight and Sound. One year after its release, the film stands as both a critical and commercial success. The total Box Office receipts for Ireland, at IR £800 000 in the first 3 months, were comparable to a major Hollywood blockbuster. The film was still being screened 10 months later in Dublin's north inner city, the heartland of Dublin's heroin epidemic. Given its subject-matter, it is important to examine both the film itself, and its points of contact with the realities of drug addiction. In this respect, three questions suggest themselves: is the film showing anything new (representation), is it doing anything new (technique), and what is the film saying (ideology)?