From squalor to salvation: decoding ‘Trainspotting’ figurehead Mark Renton
An instant star-making performance, Ewan McGregor’s Mark Renton is the narrative and emotional fulcrum of Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, one of the best British films of the 1990s. A dark, dingy, and often despairing look at the perils of drug addiction, the protagonist and narrator is trapped in a cycle of his own making, one that he desperately wants out of.
The biggest issue is scrambling his way out of the pit he’d been wallowing in for far too long, which is significantly easier said than done. He might be an unemployed heroin addict constantly chasing his next fix, but Renton comes from a much more affluent background than his inner circle, and that combination of intelligence and ambition is what sets him apart.
He dreams of a better life for himself, and he’s confident he can get it so long as he manages to clean himself up, but it’s overcoming that crippling hurdle that presents the largest obstacle. When his attempts to wean himself off the drugs don’t exactly go according to plan, Renton becomes increasingly caught up in the fear of an existence he’s got nobody else to blame for but himself.
By his own admission, “the streets are awash with drugs you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all,” but it gradually becomes clear that’s not the life he either imagined or wanted for himself. For all the ambition he has, Renton finds himself resigned to the world of pessimism and self-loathing he’s become accustomed to, making a point through voiceover of claiming that he’s got no interest in becoming an active member of society.
Of course, the fact he betrays his friends and steals their money to do just that at the end of the third act makes it patently clear that’s not the case, with Trainspotting concluding on Renton’s new beginning. Somebody had to emerge unscathed from the squalor the central characters had found themselves in, and as the most sensible member of an unruly and unambitious bunch by default, it may as well have been him.
There’s only so long anybody can coast through an aimless existence without starting to long for more. While it would have been all too easy for Renton to live out his days as a junkie with his future planned out no further than the next hit, the dichotomy of his addictive and self-destructive nature being placed in direct opposition to the inner turmoil born from his need to clean himself up creates both the internal and external conflict that drives the character forward.
Renton’s internal monologue is equally important – if not more so – to the story than the plot, and his growing maturity throughout the narrative finds his personality undergoing seismic changes. The audience is let in on this fact long before his friends are, creating a deeper connection with the viewer and guaranteeing their investment in seeing him become extricated from his plight.
The crushing weight of expectation and pressure—whether from his friends, family, or societal norms and ideals—places Renton in the centre of a dangerous predicament. Thanks to their shared addiction and reliance on each other, he’s basically co-dependent with Spud and Sick Boy, and yet he’s the only one of the three with any sense of individuality away from their characteristic quirks and eccentricities.
Renton’s final monologue, which neatly closes out the film, explains his entire personality to a tee. “The truth is that I’m a bad person. But, that’s going to change; I’m going to change,” he says. “This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I’m cleaning up, and I’m moving on, going straight and choosing life. I’m looking forward to it already. I’m going be just like you.”
It encapsulates everything that he’s done, and the reasons why he’s done it, but also showcases the growth he’s displayed over the course of Trainspotting. He didn’t want to be what society wanted him to be, so he fell into the world of drugs and petty crime, which is what made him “a bad person” by his own estimation. Until he realised he was wrong, after which it became his endgame.
However, when he says he’s “cleaning up and I’m moving on”, he’s rationalising his previous actions by referring to them as a thing of the past, but nonetheless justified because they’d gotten him to that point. He needed a few thousand pounds to come to that conclusion, but now that he’s got the financial means to turn his life around, he doesn’t give a second thought to the people he’s leaving behind. And when he adds that he’s “going to be just like you”, it’s a confirmation that maybe normalcy isn’t so bad after all, and it’s a damn sight better than the life he’s been living.
