Great Character: Renton (“Trainspotting”)

This month’s theme: Addiction. Today’s guest post by Jason Cuthbert features Renton from the 1996 movie Trainspotting, written by John Hodge, novel by Irvine Walsh.

If you ever need a brutal reality check for why you might not really want to needle up your first heroin smack down, just check into the reckless rehab of Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) in director Danny Boyle’s 1996 crime drama Trainspotting, written by John Hodge from Irvine Welsh’s novel. This perversely delicious Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning screenplay reeks with the reality of a drug addict’s soiled, perpetually worn clothing and God forsaken hygiene. It aches with the misery of a concerned parent’s sleepless nights. And it especially roars with the smutty wit of Renton and his Scottish mate’s youthful middle finger to responsibility and sobriety.

Trainspotting plot summary from IMDB:

Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

If drug addiction is a demon, Renton’s heroin habit is seeking to dethrone Satan. We are not talking about a neglected orphan abandoned by crack head zombies or a poverty-punished drug-dealing youngster who regretfully sampled his own product. Renton appears to have emerged from a healthy, middle class two-parent home. Their loving desire and commitment to clean up his medicinal messes is so clear that it couldn’t be clouded by an addiction like his. Therefore, whatever or whoever turned on Renton’s evil needle of darkness was outside of his shiny happy home, just waiting to welcome Renton to their misery.

RENTON: Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?

With the low lack of motivation that comes with the addictive “vein game,” Renton chooses blatant, broad daylight theft to prolong his needy thirst for being poked by that sin pin. Restraint doesn’t seem to be a priority, but screwing complete strangers over is.

RENTON: We stole drugs. We stole prescriptions or bought them, sold them, swapped them, forged them, photocopied them. Or traded drugs with cancer victims, alcoholics, old-age pensioners, AIDS patients, epileptics, and bored housewives.

Renton is a protagonist that earns his audience sympathy the hard way, by suffering vigorously during his unevenly matched knock out bouts with the formidable urge to shoot up. The fact that this dirty fingernail lifestyle that Renton confesses to have chosen is scraping his future into a flaming spoon creates the impulse to root for his clean slate to occur. He appears to be the victim of picking his friends poorly more so than being truly naughty by nature. He never seems to admire his pals — he just feels chained to them at the ankles, unable to run freely in his own direction.

RENTON: The downside of coming off junk was I knew I would need to mix with my friends again in a state of full consciousness. It was awful. They reminded me so much of myself, I could hardly bear to look at them.

Renton’s resurrection from the nailed cross of illegal poison brings out the savage drudgery in his behavior that he surely would have never seen himself sinking into as a child, especially sinking literally into “The Worst Toilet in Scotland” to recover missing drugs.

The brilliant bed-ridden withdrawal scene manages to transform every rotten social interaction that Renton has linked himself to, into one Hell on Earth head-trip, including the iconic image of the dead baby from his heroin hangout haunting his bedroom by crawling across his ceiling.

For his rigorous attempts to become free of drugs and drug addicts, his insightful inner sermons and his flicker of bright morality begging to light up his life — Renton is one addictive GREAT CHARACTER.

Renton is a Protagonist deep into a battle with a Trickster. That’s what the addiction is: Seeming ally, actual enemy. High highs, low lows. Depending upon the character, it may be a trickster mask shrouding a Nemesis, but not always. Consider Dr. Wilbur Larch (Michael Caine) in The Cider House Rules who balances out performing safe, but illegal abortions with an addiction to ether. It enables him to function, but eventually takes his life.

Thanks to Jason for yet another Great Character post. Join us in comments for a discussion of Renton and other notable movie characters dealing with addiction.

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