THE CURBSIDE CRITERION: TRAINSPOTTING

From the first moments of its frantic, en media res opening, Trainspotting takes the viewer on a ride through the lives of five young Scottish men struggling with a variety of demons.

There’s our main protagonist, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), who’s smart and could make something of his life but would rather shoot up heroin and fuck around with his buddies.

In fact, he says so in the voice-over accompanying the opening scene: “Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family,” he intones, running through a list of choices for middle class people before concluding: “I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

Then there’s Spud (Ewen Bremner), good-natured but dumb. The others seem to keep him around so they can laugh at him and, likely, feel better about their own fucked-up lives in the process.

Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) is the suave and stylish one of the group, in a Johnny Rotten kind of way, although he prefers to mimic Sean Connery. He’s beginning his descent into addiction, a trip that will include a horrific tragedy that still doesn’t manage to deter him and his friends from their lifestyle.

Tommy (Kevin McKidd) is an athlete and recreational user of speed. He stands in judgment of the others and thus has the farthest to fall when the time comes.

Finally, there’s Begbie (Robert Carlyle), a sociopath with a hair-trigger temper who drinks heavily and doesn’t see the hypocrisy when he says of heroin, “No way would I poison my body with that shite,” while, of course, downing a glass of Scotch and holding a cigarette.

The story is mostly a series of vignettes surrounding Renton and his pals, along with their heroin dealer, dubbed “Mother Superior” (Peter Mullan), and Sick Boy’s girlfriend, Allison (Susan Vidler). The main narrative question is whether Renton will meet his inevitable end if he keeps doing heroin, and the third act of the story involves a drug deal that could supply him the money needed to finally walk away from all the insanity.

Criterion’s history with Trainspotting goes back to the LaserDisc days of the 1990s, and, in fact, a commentary track recorded in 1996 has been ported over to this new 4K Ultra HD edition. Featuring director Danny Boyle, Ewan McGregor, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge, it’s a fun chat that was worth preserving nearly three decades later.

It’s the sole bonus feature on the 4K platter, since Criterion’s 4K restoration of the film requires maximum storage space. The new transfer was approved by Boyle, which says to me that I’m watching it the way he intended me to, although you’ll find a fair amount of split criticism online about this one.

I haven’t owned this film on home video since the DVD days, so I missed the Blu-ray, but apparently this new transfer looks a bit different than its 2K counterpart, which may or may not be a travesty, depending on whose review you read. I can only shrug my shoulders and move on.

Criterion also included a Blu-ray disc sporting the same transfer (and its accompanying commentary) along with the rest of the extras, which include:
• Designing (20 minutes): Newly created for this release, and the only such new bonus feature found here, this is a chat with costume designer Rachael Fleming and production designer Kave Quinn about how they captured the squalor of the main characters’ living conditions.

• Listening (12 minutes): Remember when movie soundtracks were a big deal? Trainspotting featured an amazing soundtrack, and many of the musicians featured on it — including Iggy Pop, Damon Albarn of Blur, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream, and others — show up here to look back on the movie. Oasis’s Noel Gallagher also chimes in.

• Memories of Trainspotting (46 minutes): Hailing from the standard-def days, this is one of those retrospectives in which members of the cast and crew look back on filming a classic.

• Off the Rails: The Making of Trainspotting (45 minutes): If you prefer your making-of’s in high def, here you go. This one is more of a “start to finish” affair, giving the viewer a perspective of the the process of adapting Irvine Welsh’s novel of the same name and continuing through the production and the movie’s reception in the world.

• Deleted scenes (11 minutes): There are nine of them found here, although their total running time means that these are more bits and pieces of various moments than full-blown scenes. Optional commentary is included, if you want to find out why these moments were cut.

• Reading (3 minutes): This is a little bit from a test reading recorded by McGregor when he was involved in the commentary track. I’m not sure I’ve seen an extra like this before.

Finally, we have the teaser and theatrical trailers, along with the obligatory booklet that contains essays by critic Graham Fuller and Irvine Welsh, as well as a glossary of terms from the novel.

Fun fact: The packaging glows in the dark!

– Brad Cook (@BradCWriter)

Criterion 4k Blu ray;Danny Boyle; Transpotting movie review