FF Classics
2 total works
Mark Renton is an unrepentant drug abuser, doing his level best to elude the claims and responsibilities Life throws up to him. His pals - Spud, Sick Boy, Tommy and Begbie - are devoted to much the same heroically seedy existence. Both harrowing and hilarious, Trainspotting charts the disintegration of this unlikely gang, as their appetites for intoxication and mayhem lead them unerringly into the worst kinds of trouble.
Adapted by Shallow Grave screenwriter John Hodge from the novel by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting was an international hit in 1996, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle.
Set in the appropriately Gothic surroundings of contemporary Edinburgh, Shallow Grave presents a trio of affluent characters whose feckless lives are disrupted when they discover the corpse of their recently arrived flatmate, plus a suitcase bulging with money beneath his bed. The stage is thus set for a morality play about friendship and filthy lucre. The story balances on a knife-edge between ebullience and violence as the forces of destruction gather to claim their greedy victims.
Shallow Grave won the Alexander Korda award for Best British Film of 1994, and established the partnership of writer John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald, director Danny Boyle and actor Ewan McGregor - a partnership to be renewed triumphantly the following year on Trainspotting.