Trainspotting

My friends and I have agreed that the best word to describe Trainspotting would be Intense. It is a stimulating film filled with young degenerate heroin addicts, vivid hallucinations, and a creepy dead baby, which has haunted me ever since I first watched the film last weekend.

What first drew me to the film were the actors. Ewan McGregor, the top billed actor in Trainspotting, is also the lead in one of my favorite movies, Moulin Rouge, so I was very curious to see his performance in this piece. Also amongst the cast, I saw Jonny Lee Miller, the actor who is playing Sherlock Holmes in the new CBS series, 'Elementary,' which is airing this fall. Knowing this, it became absolutely necessary to see the film.

Going into this film, I thought Trainspotting was going to depict the carefree lives of a group of Scottish youths who liked to live fast, go to clubs, and dabble with drugs, while all negative side effects would be shown in more of a comedic manner.

Boy, was I wrong.

This movie took me for a ride. One scene in particular that left an impression on me was the heavy hallucinatory scene where the main character, Renton, opts to take his last hit of heroin. Being a bad hit, this hurls him into a delirious state where he is shown thrashing and screaming in his bed while seeing terrifying images such as his friend's neglected deceased baby crawling on the ceiling and later turning its head a complete 180 degrees. It is an absolutely horrifying moment that still gives me chills when I think about it.

This scene in particular horrified me not only for its content, but also for its relation to a moment that I witnessed on a set. I do not wish to give too many details to give the actor some privacy, but one of the scenes that a production I worked on shot was a party scene in which one of the actors had to pretend to take several hits from a bong. Fake weed that was legally bought was placed inside the bong, however, these 'Scooby snacks,' or synthetic weed, had more of an effect than regular weed. The actor started to have hallucinations similar to what I saw in Trainspotting and it was an intense scene to witness. However, everything turned out all right and the actor was not harmed or even fazed by the situation, which was reassuring. He showed up energetic and ready to work the next day wishing to continue filming like nothing ever happened.

Although some of the scenes in Trainspotting can be quite disturbing, it is a thought provoking and powerful movie that I highly recommend.