Trainspotting

I found the movie Trainspotting very interesting because of the way it explored drug addiction and the behavior of someone who is trying to get clean from a drug. Trainspotting is one of the films that show up when you search “must watch films” on Google, and one that I’ve been meaning to watch for so long, but just never had the time to. I was really excited to watch it in class when I saw it in the syllabus and it was for good reason.

The film was shown through Renton’s perspective and how he saw things from an addicts perspective. In my opinion, his difficulties in dealing with his drug addiction could not only be applied to drugs, but also our own mundane addictions. 

For example, I used to find myself addicted to video games. Similar to Renton, I found it very difficult to quit playing video games cold turkey and simply tell myself I’ll play just one last game and then I’ll quit. However, as we saw in the movie, stopping an activity that you’re addicted to can lead to relapsing. Even if I had stopped playing video games for a time, there was that itch to play whenever I got stressed from school in order to escape from the stress and be somewhere else mentally. To a certain extent, this also happened to Renton as he relapsed back to doing heroin once he was faced with the stress of the underage girl, Diane, threatening him and forcing him to keep seeing her even if he may face potential jail time by doing so. On a more positive note, the film is also able to show the positives of overcoming your addiction as initially seen in how Renton was able to integrate himself back into society and his friend’s lives before he relapsed due to stress and the threats of Diane.

Something I also liked was how the film showed Renton being able to live better when he moved to London. I think this shows how our environment and situation might be affecting us. It made me think on how important it was to be aware of our own situations and even if we feel comfortable somewhere, it might not be the best for us as it leads to more problems. This can be seen in Renton’s friends as most of them were bad influences and were not really taking life seriously. There’s a saying that says you are the average of your 5 closest friends and I would say that there is a truth to that. Being aware of your friends and how they affect you is very important because you might find comfort in being with them due to the amount of things you’ve been through and how long your friendship might have lasted, but at the end of the day, you have to cut bad people off from your life if they’re affecting you negatively. Because of this, I think Renton leaving his group of friends and going off on his own was justifiable especially since Begbie and Sick Boy was essentially taking advantage of their friendship with him and continually involving him in their illegal schemes even if Renton was trying to go straight. Leaving money for Spud, who seemed to be one of the better friends Renton had, was also a redeeming moment for Renton and made his decision to leave with the money more justifiable from my perspective and probably the perspective of the audience who watched the film.

All in all, I really liked the movie and how it explored addiction as well as the social dynamics of friends and how they might be bad for you. Hopefully, I’m also able to be aware when I’m put in a situation where my friends become bad for me and be able to realize and take the necessary action like how Renton was able to.