Set in the underbelly of Edinburgh, Trainspotting is a story inhabited by a galaxy of immensely colorful characters -- liars, thieves, junkies -- people whose habits, emotions, and stories will leave an indelible imprint on the reader's mind.
It's not the original. Irving Welsh wrote the original. This is written by the screenwriter of the movie. Don't even pick this up, I never did. Read the Irving Welsh. Reading this is like reading the novelization of "Big Lebowski" or "Caddyshack." Read a book turned into a movie, not a movie turned into a book.
The screen stills are a nice addition. I re-watched the film and the 2017 sequel after reading this screenplay. Definitely worth revisiting occasionally. The story is gritty with vulgar language and extreme drug use.
Related Film: Kneecap (2024)
Favorite Passages/Quotes: Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. ______
We called him the mother superior on account of the length of his habit. ______
The suppositories are in his hand. He holds them up, and they twinkle in the light. _______
Sneaky fucker, don't you think? And when all I wanted to do was lie alone and feel sorry for myself, he insisted on telling me once again about his unifying theory of life. . . . . SICK BOY It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.
RENTON What do you mean?
SICK BOY Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life . . . ______
For a vegetarian, Rents, you're a fucking evil shot. ______
Without heroin, I attempted to lead a useful and fulfilling life as a good citizen. _______
The truth - well, the truth is that I've had a long-standing problem with heroin addiction. I've been known to sniff it, smoke it, swallow it, stick it up my arse and inject it into my veins. I've been trying to combat this addiction, but unless you count social security scams and shoplifting, I haven't had a regular job in years. _______
Mr. Murphy, what attracts you to the leisure industry?
SPUD In a word, pleasure. My pleasure in other people's leisure. _______
Spud had done well. I was proud of him. He fucked up good and proper. _______
Well, you know me, I'm no looking for trouble but at the end of the day I'm the cunt with the pool cue and I'm game for a swedge. _______
Yeah, the guy's a psycho, but it's true, he's a mate as well, so what can you do? Just stand back and watch and try not to get involved. _______
DIANE The truth is that you're a quiet, sensitive type but if I'm prepared to take a chance I might just get to know the inner you: witty, adventurous, passionate, loving, loyal, a little bit crazy, a little bit bad, but, hey, don't us girls just love that? _______
TOMMY Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?
RENTON I hate being Scottish. We're the lowest of the fucking low, the scum of the earth, the most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference. ______
At or around this time, we made a healthy, informed, democratic decision to get back on drugs as soon as possible. It took about twelve hours. . . . . It looks easy, this, but it's not. It looks like a doss, like a soft option, but living like this, it's a full-time business. _______
SICK BOY Not much to look at, like, but personality, that's what counts, that's what keeps a relationship going through the years. Like heroin. I mean, heroin's got a fucking great personality. _______
Swanney taught us to adore and respect the National Health Service, for it was the source of much of our gear. We stole drugs, we stole prescriptions, or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them or traded them with cancer victims, alcoholics, old age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics and bored housewives. We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclozine, codeine, temazepam, nitrezepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs that you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all. Fuck it, we would have injected Vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal. _______
SPUD Hey, go easy, lady. The boy's got a habit to support.
SICK BOY Opium doesn't just grow on trees, you know. _______
SHERIFF In sentencing you to six months' imprisonment my only worry is that it will not be long before we meet again. _______
FATHER I hope you've learned your lesson, son.
MOTHER Oh, my son, I thought I was going to lose you there. You're nothing but trouble to me, but I still love you.
BEGBIE Clean up your act, sunshine. Cut that shite out for ever.
MOTHER You listen to Francis, Mark, he's talking sense.
BEGBIE Fucking right and I am. See, inside, you wouldn't last two fucking days.
SICK BOY There's better things than the needle, Rents. Choose life.
He winks.
MOTHER I remember when you were a baby, even then you would never do what you were told.
BEGBIE But he pulled it off, clever bastard, and he got a result. _______
BEGBIE It's no our fault. Your boy went down because he was a fucking smack-head and if that's not your fault, I don't know what is. _______
RENTON (voice-over) I wished I had gone down instead of Spud. Here I was surrounded by my family and my so-called mates and I've never felt so alone, never in all my puff. Since I was on remand they've had me on this program, the state-sponsored addiction, three sickly sweet doses of methadone a day instead of smack. But it's never enough, and at the moment it's nowhere near enough. I took all three this morning and now I've got eighteen hours to go till my next shot and a sweat on my back like a layer of frost. I need to visit the mother superior for one hit, one fucking hit to get us over this long, hard day.
Renton climbs the wall. He stands on top, then dives off the other side, executing a somersault in mid-air.
INT. SWANNEY'S FLAT. NIGHT Swaney is cooking up. Renton lands on the floor behind him like a gymnast.
RENTON What's on the menu this evening?
SWANNEY Your favorite dish.
RENTON Excellent.
SWANNEY Your usual table, sir?
RENTON Why, thank you.
Renton sits on his usual cushion on the floor.
SWANNEY And would sir care to settle his bill in advance?
RENTON Stick it on my tab.
SWANNEY Regret to inform, sir, that your credit limit was reached and breached a long time ago.
RENTON In that case . . . (He produces twenty pounds.)
SWANNEY Oh, hard currency, why, sir that'll do nicely.
(He swipes the notes underneath a UV forgery checker.)
Can't be too careful when we're dealing with your type, can we?
(Renton begins his search for a vein.)
Would sir care for a starter? Some garlic bread perhaps?
RENTON No, thank you. I'll proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs, please. ________
SICK BOY Fuck you. Ok, so Tommy's got the virus. Bad news, big deal. The gig goes on, or hadn't you noticed? Swanney fucks his leg up. Well, tough shit, but it could have been worse.
RENTON You're all heart. ________
DIANE You're not getting any younger, Mark. The world is changing, music is changing, even drugs are changing. You can't stay in here all day dreaming about heron and Ziggy Pop.
RENTON It's Iggy Pop.
DIANE Whatever. I mean, the guy's dead anyway.
RENTON Iggy Pop is not dead. He toured last year. Tommy went to see him.
DIANE The point is, you've got to find something new. (Diane completes the joint.) _______
SICK BOY Well, Christ, if I'd known you were going to get so humpty about it, I wouldn't have bothered. Are you going to eat that? (He takes Renton's fish supper and adds it to his own.) ________
RENTON (voice-over) So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I'm a bad person, but that's going to change, I'm going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. I'm looking forward to it already. I'm going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suit, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.
AFTERWORD - INTERVIEW WITH IRVINE WELSH author of the novel, Trainspotting, with Kevin MacDonald
IW: I think that a lot of people are sick of the kind of representations of the world that we live in as a kind of bland Four Weddings and a Funeral sort of place - they want something that says a wee bit more about the society that we actually live in and a wee bit more about the different cultures within that society that tend to be ignored. _______
KM: Do you think that the film will be faithful to your book? IW: I think that as an author the first thing you have to tell yourself is: I wrote the book but somebody ese is making the film. The whole point of it - the exciting part of it - is that it's going to be transformed in some way. The more transformation the better from my point of view. People go on about a 'faithful interpretation', but you can't have a faithful interpretation of something; you can maybe have it in spirit, but it's going to change as it moves into a different medium. I think that with film or any other different medium, you don't have the same degree of freedom as you maybe do with the blank page, on to which you can put whatever you like. You can build up a lot of psychological depth to the characters in a book, whereas in film you've really got to take a line on it and say, maybe, is this a black comedy or is this social realism? And then stick to that line. Anyway, that's the exciting part about it. It is open to so many different interpretations, and it's something that I change my own mind about quite a lot. ________
KM: Do you think that Trainspotting - the book - is dated in any way? IW: . . . The thing had moved. But the drug which people chose to fuck up on isn't really the issue. The fact is that there's just so few opportunities for people that it's not surprising that they try to escape from it or try to obliterate as much of the pain of the world as possible. So while the drugs may have changed, the issues are just the same. People have always abused drugs.
Trainspotting is a phenomenal work that has achieved cult status, provocative, challenging, intriguing, creative, humorous, edgy as it is, the motion picture that has launched the career of a few excellent performers, from Ewan McGregor to Kelly Macdonald.
Perhaps one of the most important features, attractions of this dazzling, fast, effervescent, vibrant, at times nauseating motion picture – if not the most important – is its complexity – it is a mixture of bathroom humor taken to incredible extremes and mediation on the meaning of life, consumerism and the catastrophe of drug addiction. The first few lines have made history, with their deep, insightful, deceptive, philosophical message of “Choose life. Choose a job…big television…electrical tin openers…”
It is evidently a satire, an indictment of the modern society wherein choosing life means buying things, a longing for material goods that psychology studies have demonstrated bring little or nothing in terms of happiness, since we adapt to them- this is called Hedonic Adaptation. The alternative for the protagonists of this tragicomedy – which is strangely listed only as drama on IMDB – is taking drugs of any kind – at one point the hero, Renton aka the outstanding Ewan McGregor, lists the names of what seem to be more than one hundred pills that one can buy in pharmacies or the street.
Renton tries to rehabilitate and give up heroin addiction, but this happens quite a few times, since he says this is the final hit, only to repeat it again and again, and his struggle may work to educate viewers on what the drug plague can bring one to. There are some hallucinating, horrible scenes that depict what happens and what addicts are able to do, even when they actually do not engage on what they must do, as in the case of the supervision of the baby that dies, in a flat full of junkies in various states of drug induced unconsciousness.
Some scenes can be hard top watch, although they can also be hilarious, like the moment when a few suppository drug pills fall into the “Worst Toilet in Scotland” and Mark Renton submerges himself into the most disgusting, faeces covered latrine ever seen on the screen, which at one point looks like part of the sick imagination of a man under the influence.
Spud is another member of this outré, outrageous group and he has his own adventure with excrement, as he drinks too much one night, just as his girlfriend is ready to have sex, he passes out, in the morning finds that he has defecated in the bed. He comes to breakfast, where the parents of his girlfriend take a kind view of his excesses, while the girl says he should be tied, the young man has the bed shits with him, the mother wants to take care of them, they struggle over them and suddenly, all the turds fly over the room, covering the faces of those around.
Sick Boy is the third exotic character, obsessed with Sean Connery, his career, the Bond girls – he knows all the details and has a defiant opinion on the Oscar, which was not deserved for The Untouchables, but it is also the result of a “sympathy vote” according to this cinephile- well, at least he watches his idol. Sick Boy has more to say about artistic careers in general, after analyzing The Name of the Rose, the inevitable descent, he mentions other stars like Elvis, with his serious collapse as he aged.
Mark Renton claims he wants to borrow a video tape with the Best 100 Goals, wherein he has inserted a sex tape of his comrade and his girlfriend and when these two return home and want to enjoy watching themselves, they find no tape and think it is at the rental store and available for all to watch. Begbie is portrayed by Robert Carlyle and is perhaps the most dangerous, extreme and violent of the group, obsessed with fighting, beating innocent people as he plays pool and someone disturbs him because he eats chips, throwing glasses from the upper floor and attacking whomever for no reason.
Abandoning his vice for some time, Mark Renton discovers in a nightclub that his sexual desires – long annihilated by heroin – are revived, he meets Diane - played by the actress introduced by this classic, Kelly Macdonald – and she is very adult, self- assured, cynical, witty, and courageous and takes him home. They have sex, she then says he can sleep on the couch, outside her room or just go to his place – in the morning, he wakes up, comes to breakfast where a man asks him about coffee and then the hero demands- are you flat mates with Diane?
To his astonishment, these people are not sharing an apartment with the girl, they are the parents of a teenager who is only fourteen – on the way to school, Mark talks to the uniformed student and explains that it is illegal to have a relationship and therefore he is ending it, only to hear the girl threating to go to…the police if he stops seeing her.
As drug addicts do, the group is involved in all possible crimes, from stealing televisions and other things from old people’s homes, to getting the pills they covet from unsuspecting doctors and anybody else, shop lifting and when they get caught, Spud is sent to jail, while Renton escapes severe punishment. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have a chance to make money, as a couple of Russian sailors sell some drugs to one dealer who passes it on to them and they take it to London to a criminal played by the novelist, Irvine Welsh.
This fantastic work has received acclaim from critics and audiences alike and is included on the New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made List: https://www.listchallenges.com/new-yo...
“Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family, Choose a fucking big television Choose washing machines, cars, Compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol And dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase In a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you Are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing Sprit-crushing ga me shows Stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, Pishing you last in a miserable home Nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, Fucked-up brats You have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. Scottish shite”
I didn’t read the book above, I read the actual screenplay (pdf). I found it much easier to read than the original book (I’ve seen excerpts). I don’t understand all the praise the movie received, except for great acting and music. (Am a huge fan of both Robert Carlyle and Evan McGregor). As far as the story goes it seems repetitive and circular. It was difficult for me to find a likable character. There’s theft, violence, drug abuse, racism, and seemingly nonsensical conversations. And the dead baby. And the dead friend. Sounds like the eighties at their absolute worst. I was waiting for the MC (Renton, Rents) to change or get a clue. What a disappointment. Did he really Choose Life after all the failures? I think not. I will probably try make it through the movie one time. I be a challenge.
This review is for readability. I’m currently taking a screenwriting class where Trainspotting was discussed, and that is why I read it.
pta la edición ue me dio mi papà por mi graduación se rompió mientras lo leía pero bno. Una de mis pelìculas favoritas, la he visto màs de 10 veces en los últimos años, y 9 veces el año pasado asi ue leerlo no me interesó mucho cuando ya había visto la pelìcula varias veces, pero ver las cosas ue cambiaron fue interesante.
Honestly loved reading the screenplay. I’m in the middle of reading the book and, have seen the movie before, I just thought I’d take a breather in between and read this and yeah just love this screenplay so much.
Es un libro duro, con un lenguaje explicito que en más de un momento me dejó con un mal sabor de boca, en otros puntos, me pareció tedioso y aburrido y en otros, me podía el cotilleo. Me parece un libro que tiene incoherencias, que no sé si es que no está bien traducido, que el autor no estaba concentrado en el momento de escribir o que yo no estaba concentrada en el momento de leerlo. Yo no llegue a simpatizar con ninguno de los personajes, de hecho para mi, hay alguno que no está bien definido. El libro me enganchó lo suficiente para acabarlo, pero de haber tenido otro libro que leer a mano, probablemente lo habría dejado a medias y lo habría retomado en un futuro (o lo más probable es que nunca lo hubiese vuelto a tocar) La narración me pareció difícil de entender y puede Ser que fuese por la edición que me cogí, a mi parecer es una edición que no está bien editada y que una editorial como "Anagrama" deje a medias alguna frase en el libro y que los capítulos no estén bien divididos, me hace pensar que fue un libro hecho con poco cariño. El argumento para mi no tiene giros inesperados, aunque, el final si que me dejó un poco como "¿Qué? ¿Perdona? ¿Y me van a dejar así?" Para mi el final necesitaba dos o tres hojas más. ¿Lo recomendaría? Es un libro que yo no recomendaría, en este caso, la película le gana al libro.
Con todo esto no quiero decir que el libro sea malo, simplemente que este libro no es del todo para mí. Creo que leí que había una segunda parte y teniendo el final abierto que tiene, cuando caiga en mis manos lo leeré para ver si así me cierra mejor todo. Para leer más: https://lalibreraquelee.blogspot.com/
I love reading scripts. They're short and easy to read. When I found this Trainspotting screenplay, I immediately bought it because I've always been curious about this story. Best. Decision. Ever. . 💉 I enjoy stories that involve drug addiction especially ones that portray a drug addict's life as close to reality as possible. Trainspotting is one of those stories. . 💉 I love that this portrayed drug addicts as the flawed humans that they are and not the monsters that they always seem to be in most movies. . 💉 The best part of this story is Renton being its narrator. . 💉 I'm glad that I read the screenplay before watching the movie. There were a few scenes that were cut from the film that I would've liked to see. . 💉 This screenplay made me want to read the Trainspotting book and the rest of Irvine Welsh's bibliography. . 💉 And lastly, about the movie, IS THERE ANYTHING SEXIER THAN THAT ACCENT? 😂 . 5 stars. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
La calificación que le doy es más por mi incompetencia porq es un libro q debe ser leído en su idioma original para disfrutarse mas y aún así es difícil. Entiendo que está escrito en un lenguaje barrial y popular con una gran cantidad de modismos muy locales de Edimburgo. Leí una edición en castellano que busca adaptar la obra y darle la atmósfera marginal del original, pero no fue de mi gusto tanto "tio", "que le den por culo", y demas expresiones españolas que le hacen perder el cariz británico a la cosa. Entiendo que a los mismos ingleses les cuenta un poco este tema y más aún a los Estadounidenses por lo que me imagino que la tarea no era fácil en la adaptación ya a otros idiomas, pero es la verdad no conecte con el por tanta palabreja que despista, por lo que mi calificación es bastante injusta pero sirve describir un poco la perspectiva de alguien que no se le da mucho el inglés para leer
There are not enough stars for this book. This has to be in my Top 10 favorite books of this life and the next. I have NEVER laughed so hard in my life while reading a book. I laughed so hard and so often that, ultimately, my friends realized precisely WHEN I was reading this book. Thanks to Irvine Welsh, I realized that the world is ready for my kind of writing: writing where ALL the taboos have been stripped away and laughed at for the moronic lines in the sand that they are. When I finished this book, my only thought was this: "HOLY FUCK! I CAN DO THIS! I WILL DO THIS!" Irvine Welsh - via Trainspotting - was the kick in the ass I needed to move from reader to writer. If you are, by any stretch, a writer, then you need to read this book. It's all about the story. And what a fucked-up story it is! Thank you, Mr. Welsh.
This is the first screenplay I've read, so I don't know how it compares to other screenplays. I watched this movie eight or nine years ago at a friend's house. I liked it so much I purchased the movie the next day.
The screenplay runs along a similar storyline as what made it to the film. And if I hadn't watched the film, I don't know if I would have been lost like other readers have said. While reading I remember just how great the movie was and how well the actors executed their characters. It made me that much more excited to read the book.
The ending sort of drops off out of no where. I don't know why Renton decided to go back to the world of stuff instead of all the trouble he had been getting into with heroin and his friends. I'm hoping the book will give me the full story.
I'm guessing the date I read it, I can't really remember. Great book. You sort of have to struggle through the scottish vernacular but once you get the swing of thing the protagonist is really interesting. He's torn between kicking his heroin addiction and wondering if what "we" (middle classers) all value is really worth anything.
Fair warning, there are some really disgusting parts to this novel-- if you've seen the movie (which I would highly recommend)-- if you're squeamish you might not want to read this book. And no heroine is definately not glamorouse in this book.
Compelling characters, believable enough to make you want to say, why the feck are you doin' that?!!
Exstremely difficult to read at first. Almost had to write a deciphering code for each word present in the first chapter, but I soon got the hang of it and actually enjoyed the flavor writing in an accent can bring. Wasn't too pleased with the ending though, but what can you expect from a junky? this is one book that I would say watching the movie before the book would be exstremely helpful!
This book is a little hard to read at first because it's written phonetically in the Scottish accent, but once you get used to it, it's great although depressing at times because it is about heroin addiction.
Clichéd I know, but this book is truely fantastic and it offers a wonderful yet terrifying insight into the (somewhat) fictional Edinburgh drug-culture. Irvine Welsh's use of multiple narration is imperative to the novel's message as it highlights the difference each addiction brings.
Talk about an F***ed up book... this is one of them. Tripped up on heroin, trying to get sober, yet finding nothing but heartbreak along the way. Intense read for those of you who can handle the explicit nature of the book.
This was definitely a difficult book to read with the scottish dialect throughout and slang, but reading Trainspotting was so worthwhile. The characters are so lovable. I've never read a book so funny and heart-wrenching at the same time. An all time classic!
wow, this is a tough book to read - it's written just like it would be spoken, but in a MAJOR Irish /Scottish accent with a druggie twist. BUT - as difficult as it is to read, it's also like watching a train wreck.
Tried reading it once and couldn't get into it so I stopped. Picked it up a year or so later and read it all the way through. Phonetic Scottish accent is hard to get used to, at first.