Trainspotting is a 1996 movie directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremmer, and Jonny Lee Miller. It played all over the world and while it may not have made anyone exceedingly wealthy the movie did make a nice profit and was nominated for an Academy Award. Trainspotting is a romp through the streets of Scotland with a group of young people that decide that their lives are so boring that they want to turn to heroin as an escape from the banal life they are forced to live. The movie follows each character through the effects that an underground life can have and it makes Trainspotting a very emotional and powerful movie. It shows the steady decline of the group as they slip deeper and deeper into a world that they have no control over and soon they begin to realize that the life they have chosen with drugs is much worse than a life without drugs. Trainspotting is a movie that warns that sometimes the dangerous alternatives that we choose to non-dangerous situations can cause our lives to go off track and can cause us to lose complete control of our lives. Trainspotting not only tells a story but Danny Boyle also puts out to everyone that we all must face the consequences of our actions and that many times in life when we believe that something cannot happen to us, if we make the wrong decisions, then bad things will happen to us. It is a dark movie that grabs you from the beginning and refuses to let go until it is done spinning its tale of warning and disaster for everyone to benefit from.

Trainspotting was a breakthrough for Ewan McGregor and his performance in the movie not only earned him a series of awards from Scottish film boards and other agencies but it also helped pave the way for McGregor to take on roles in much bigger films which included the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars episodes I through III. All that being said the movie Trainspotting still had its shortcomings. In order for it to be released in America much of the first half of the movie had to be redubbed because the Scottish accents were so thick that American audiences were unable to understand the dialogue. Some American Senators were attacking Trainspotting as being a movie that glorified drug use but those charges were quickly dismissed in the court of public opinion when it was later revealed that the Senators had never seen the movie. One viewing of Trainspotting should tell anyone that the one thing this movie does not do is glorify drug use.

The Beatles play a very large part in the movie Trainspotting indirectly as they were an influence on the film makers. There are scenes in Trainspotting that are reminiscent of scene’s from the Beatle’s movie A Hard Day’s Night. Some of the poses the friends take look a lot like the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and there is even a much re-done scene that pays homage to the cover of the Abbey Road album. Trainspotting is a very Scottish movie and sometimes American audiences may not completely understand the references being made and they may even have a hard time understanding what is being said even though it is in English. But the message of the movie is crystal clear and everyone could benefit from learning the lesson that a movie like Trainspotting teaches.