4K UHD Blu-ray Review: Danny Boyle’s ‘Trainspotting’ on the Criterion Collection

Of the many terribly interesting things touched on in Danny Boyle’s smart and skillful adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s 1993 debut novel, Trainspotting, it’s most tempting to contemplate facets that are only mildly developed. There is, for instance, the pointed, oddly chilling, and deeply funny monologue that Renton (Ewan McGregor), the closest thing that the audience is given to a hero here, delivers in opposition to his straight-arrow friend’s buoyant Scottish nationalism. As Renton barks at Tommy (Kevin McKidd), personal despondency is connected directly to lack of a unique cultural identity, which Renton is quick to see as a reflection of Scotland’s muddled ties to the United Kingdom.

The whole spiel doesn’t quite account for the astounding amount of heroin that Renton and his cronies pump into their corroded veins, attained through various burglaries and scams, but coupled with the dour, decrepit environs of Glasgow and Edinburgh—captured in all its hyperbolic wretchedness by DP Brian Tufano—the need for industrial-strength opiates becomes understandable. If for nothing else, Renton, Spud (Ewen Bremner), and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) need some horse to account for their social ills, as they’re all unemployed, single, and are skilled solely at dispersing random facts about the decline of Sean Connery. Save poor Tommy, they’re social degenerates on their best day and Trainspotting, adapted from Welsh’s novel by John Hodge, smartly doesn’t try to hunt too hard for redemption.

As befits the novel, which is closer to a short-story collection, the film’s drama derives from fluctuations between living in a smack-induced fever dream and attempts at going cold turkey, finding pitch-black humor, horror, tragedy, and violence in a series of asides and digressions. Many of these involve Begby (Robert Carlyle), a ferocious alcoholic who shuns his mates for spiking up, often right before he flies into an epic rage over some minor inconvenience. (This knowledge of how addicts of legal drugs mask their sicknesses by demonizing imbibers of illegal drugs is another fascinating strain that’s only marginally explored.) Other diversions include the great Kelly Macdonald as Renton’s underage girlfriend, a bravura detox sequence soundtracked to Underworld’s “Dark and Long,” a climactic change-of-scenery as Renton moves to London, and Peter Mullan as a heroin lifer nicknamed “Mother Superior.”

Even Walsh gets in on the action as an intolerable drug-dealing creeper who supplies Renton with suppositories, leading to the film’s most fantastical, grotesque sequence: a headfirst submergence into a toilet bowl covered and filled with liquid shit. And this isn’t even considering the family members and significant others that wander in and out of the narrative with only momentary consequence, and among the virtues of Trainspotting is the seemingly effortless way it keeps this full, robust, and consistently surprising social circle in constant movement. Boyle’s brilliant pacing and unwavering sense of motion within the frame is equally important to Hodge’s whip-smart script: For a film based on addiction to a drug that generally renders you immobile, the camera and every character seems in forever fluid motion.

Of course, Boyle’s generous, ingenious, and original take on such dark themes and subject matter was misinterpreted as glorification, most famously by presidential hopeful Bob Dole, who declared it unsuitable without even laying eyes on it. Had Mr. Dole screened the film, he would have certainly not found anything glorifying about Renton’s detox or, for that matter, the wrenching sequence in which a junkie’s infant’s vomit-encrusted corpse is discovered mid-binge. Indeed, Boyle, now Oscar-anointed for the grossly overpraised Slumdog Millionaire, seemed to be fighting his own battle on screen, between depicting the abominable agony of addiction and invoking the rush and sublime release that sparks and sustains it. Each shot hits like a high, making it clear that Boyle’s addiction to the cinematic image, though not dangerous, is as similarly unremitting as Renton’s love affair with the spike.

Image/Sound

Criterion’s 4K UHD transfer, presented in Dolby Vision HDR, is nothing short of stellar. Even the minutest of details are beautifully captured here, showing off Trainspotting’s exquisitely grimy production design, while the dynamic range of colors allows for the film’s more colorful sequences in the club and exteriors to pop off screen as the more drab, desaturated sequences retain their suitably sickly hues. The 2.0 surround audio is nearly as strong, boasting a mix that nicely balances the cacophony of voices, street noise, and the moody, propulsive soundtrack, which has an ornateness and sonic depth that’s very impressive.

Extras

In their 1996 audio commentary, director Danny Boyle, actor Ewan McGregor, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge discuss the challenges in adapting what was considered an unadaptable novel and trying to capture its essence while expanding its world for the film. It’s an interesting conversation that focuses as much on the importance of the screenplay and screenwriter as the production crew. Even more compelling is a 20-minute featurette with Trainspotting’s costume and production designers, Kave Quinn and Rachael Fleming, talking about how their work was influenced by painters Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon, as well as the emotional and psychological effects they were going for in various scenes.

Also included here is a 45-minute making-of documentary in which nearly every major member of the cast and crew gives their thoughts on the material, while a shorter 2008 doc, Memories of Trainspotting, finds most of the same people looking back on the film’s shooting and initial reception with over a decade’s distance from it. One of the more clever and unusual extras in recent memory is one in which many of the musicians who contributed to the soundtrack, including Iggy Pop, Bobby Gillespie, and Jarvis Cocker, give their thoughts on both the film and the original novel. The package is rounded out with a slew of deleted scenes, the film’s teaser and trailer, and a beautiful 40-page booklet populated with tons of black-and-white promo photos and incisive essays by critic Graham Fuller and author Irvine Welsh.

Overall

Everything from diverse slate of extras and A/V presentation of a new 4K restoration down to its quirky, handsome packaging speaks to the tender loving care Criterion put into this release.