Watching it again for the umpteenth fine, although for the first time in at least fifteen years, is how the charming, intelligent, outwardly sympathetic Mark Renton is actually a complete bastard. Yes, he’s complicit in the neglect and death of baby Dawn after he introduces the baby’s mother to heroin, but at least he’s not a parent. Yes, it’s unfair that Spud goes to prison and not his middle class self. Yes, he makes a lot of money in a big heroin deal, although as he doesn’t betray Spud I don’t think he needs feel any guilt about double crossing Sick Boy or Bregbie. No; they deserved all they got. But Tommy? He loses his girlfriend because Renton tricks him into letting him have a video having sex with Lizzie, causing Lizzie to leave him. Then the clean-living Tommy, devastated, asks Renton for heroin, which he gets. All this directly leads to AIDS and his horrible death, which is entirely Renton’s fault. But he’s negative.
Renton may have the privileges that come with being bareTir, but he’s as much of a bastard as anyone in the film. It’s just that he gets to cover it up with his middle class ways. And I bet none of his mates would have had the option of moving to London and making loads of money in the property business.
Sick Boy, despite of his amusing obsession with Sean Connery and his despair at Dawn’s death, is a grasping, cynical, amoral bastard. Begbie is a a monster of the type that far too many blokes have in their social circles. But Renton is as bad as any of them, and I think that’s what Welsh and Danny Boyle I tend us to conclude.
Still one of the greatest film ever made. I love the wit, I love the style, I love the worst toilet in Scotland, I love the nostalgic glimpse of a branch of John Menzies. And the soundtrack is awesome.
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