The Heroin Diaries

Requiem for a Dream, Trainspotting, and Choosing Life

Heroin. The go to drug for rock stars not long for this world, a burdened dream of ecstasy. Films exploring addiction tend to venture the more common paths of alcoholism or gambling, as heroin addiction is aggressive in its tragedy. In the mid-nineties and early 2000s, two auteur directors (both working on their sophomore films) tackled the subject of such a heinous addiction in two drastically different ways. Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting is a rollicking thrill ride that heaves the viewer around until abruptly stopping for tragic moments. Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem of a Dream is a descent into hell, a torture for viewer and character, unabashed and unafraid. By presenting this world of life on the edges of society in such drastically different ways, the two films can tackle the same subject matter with unique perspectives and inclinations.

In Trainspotting we follow Mark “Rent Boy” Renton and his ghoulish group of ne’er-do-well “friends”, Spud (Ewan Bremner), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and Francis “Franco” Begbie. They are “friends” by approximation, as Edinburgh is a shithole, a dead-end city with dead-end people, and these people only spend time with each other out of lack of options. Renton is constantly quitting and relapsing, his drugged-out moments blissful until harsh reality crashes back on him, his sober moments are endless and lifeless. This is a film that truly shows how the horrors of addiction can still be an escape when reality is unforgiving.

In Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky uses splintered narratives to tell the story of four separate victims of addiction. In one story we see three friends, Harry (Jared Leto), Tyrone (Marlon Wayans), and Harry’s girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) as they spend their days getting high, slinging dope, and dreaming of a future together. Parallel to this we follow Harry’s mother Sara (Ellen Burstyn), a lonely, aging woman who obsesses over television and beauty. When a scam caller tells Sara she’s going to be on television, she begins a crash diet in the hopes of fitting into a red dress from her youth, and her dark desire to be thin leads her to take addictive appetite suppressors. The film is a disturbing and unblinking portrayal of addictions and the cycles of abuse that come with it. A much darker, yet strangely more abstract, take on addiction, focusing on the downfall of what causes addiction.

Requiem’s dreams of fame and fortune are quickly and quietly squandered as the film goes on. A deal is broken, an arrest is made, money is lost. The little things that could hurt us unexpectedly are absolutely detrimental to addicts. The little mistakes that make a massive impact. The film ends with Sara in an insane asylum, Marion forced into prostitution to feed her habit, Tyrone in a brutal prison far from home, and Harry having his arm amputated after it becomes infected. The downfall is swift and inevitable, as in Aronofsky’s world there is redemption but it will cost you everything. This is a direct contrast to Boyle’s ending, which shows Renton running away with money acquired in a drug deal, abandoning his friend group and his life entirely. While played much more hopefully than Requiem, it’s not hard to see Renton following the same path as those characters.

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.

The mantra pushed forward in Trainspotting is “choose life”. A simple, borderline asinine saying. Renton starts and ends the film with the same words, and the story told in between these bookends is about his constant rage back and forth for and against this mantra. Something as simple as choosing life is not simple for an addict, as he relapses time and time again throughout the film. We see why, as heroin is portrayed as a world unto itself. The warmest, most welcoming of baths, a day spent bathed in the sunlight from your favourite bay window. That, too, is life in a way, a dreamlife, untethered from reality. It’s a short life, a bitter life when the dope runs dry, but a life nonetheless. But the bitterness between the highs is too much, too harsh, and Renton in the end decides that these bottomless pits he finds himself in after the high are not the life he wishes to remember.

“Choose life” is also the mantra for Requiem, even if not stated as blatantly. When we meet our characters, they are still filled with dreams of the future. Harry and Marion wish to open a clothing store, Sara wishes that her television appearance will be glamorous and reviving, and while Tyrone doesn’t know exactly what he wants to be, he knows what he doesn’t want to be. They want to choose life, want this world away from heroin and drugs, but they don’t see any way to attain that life without the use of heroin. They are under the false idea that they are in control of the drugs, and not the other way around. So when the money starts running low, and getting high off their own supply becomes impossible to maintain, the three young friends begin to spiral. Their desire for this better life while being unable to let go of the present satisfactions only buries them further into hell.

Sara is her own special case. Unlike the other characters we encounter in both films, she doesn’t intentionally pursue drugs, instead falling into them due to her deep loneliness. But the “choose life” mantra still plays a part in her story, a much sadder one even. Sara Goldfarb never chose life. She didn’t choose drugs either, but we can see where she is at the beginning of the film that she never chose risks, and thus never reaped rewards. She sees the people on the television, and envisions herself there, as a reclamation, as her chance to live like she never did. That’s where her desperation comes from. Fitting in the dress is not about simply looking good on television, it’s about going back in time, going back to a time in her life when there was a whole world waiting for her. If she can fit into that dress, she can do it all over again, she can fix what she has become.

I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.

We see Sara’s struggles with the life she’s lived in her kitchen talk with Harry. This is the final scene of semi-normality for all our characters before their worlds truly start to crumble. In it, Sara tells Harry how getting in that red dress means she has something to live for, something to aspire towards. With her husband gone and her son distant, she has nothing else. Her addiction in not drugs but love, adoration. She now gets the best seat in the sun outside her apartment, she’s in the light for the first time possibly ever, and she can’t let that go no matter what. All she wants is the love of the world, and if it’s not going to be given to her in the life she is currently living, she’s going to take it. Harry, unconcerned with his mother, not thinking of how he treats her, just wants her to give up her diet pills, not understanding that that’s tantamount to asking her to die. In this moment, the only thing Sara believes she’s living for is to get on that TV, to get the best spot in the sun of the whole of America.

While the characters of Requiem fail to separate life from drugs, that is the main track that Renton follows in Trainspotting and, in the process of choosing life, he sheds everything and everyone from that previous life. After finally getting clean and reaching a more (if not completely) respectable position in society, it’s Renton’s inability to let go of his old friends that drags him back into a poor life. While he doesn’t relapse at this time, he loses all the progress he has made, and it becomes apparent that it wasn’t just heroin that was holding him back in life. When the opportunity for a clean Renton to truly break free comes again at the end of the film, he has no choice but to abandon his lifelong compatriots. Again, these are not friends of his, simply the only people he had, friendship via Stockholm Syndrome. The only way to not only beat his addiction but to choose life, is to leave them at the end.

When you're on junk you have only one worry: scoring. When you're off it you are suddenly obliged to worry about all sorts of other shite. Got no money: can't get pissed. Got money: drinking too much. Can't get a bird: no chance of a ride. Got a bird: too much hassle. You have to worry about bills, about food, about some football team that never fucking wins, about human relationships and all the things that really don't matter when you've got a sincere and truthful junk habit.

While there is certainly more joy in Boyle’s addiction depiction, this is used to contrast the valleys of tragedy in the film. There are two heavy-hitting deaths in the film, those of Tommy and baby Dawn. The death of baby Dawn (the daughter of fellow heroin addict Allison) is due to negligence, her corpse showing obvious signs of decomposition, showing it had been days into their drug-induced stupor before anybody realized she died. This only proves to drive them further into addiction, as this tragedy highlights the pain of their daily existence. The death of Tommy could be said to be negligent as well, as it was a series of unfortunate events, a terrible domino, that led to Tommy’s addiction. Tommy dies alone, addicted, and HIV infected. He went from becoming the only generally functional member of the group to the only one to die. It shows that, even given a clean slate, choosing life is a day-to-day choice, an active decision.

Even when considering the endings, one must ponder with these characters and the lives they live if simply avoiding addiction would even have saved them. As we saw with Sara, she may have met with the curse later in life but she never lived a strong way before, either. In Trainspotting, we can look at the character of Begbie to show what a sedentary life could be even without addiction. Begbie is said to be a sociopath, constantly starting increasingly violent barroom brawls simply for the thrill of a fight. While not an addiction, if the only joy one can get out of the day is shedding blood, that’s not a fulfilling existence either. While others can blame their addictions for holding them back, as we see both Renton and Sick Boy excel once free from heroin’s hold, Begbie can only blame himself for his shortcomings. Even free from addiction, choosing life is more than staying drug-free, it’s truly seeing the world around you, and the ability to cherish simple moments.

It’s in the quiet moments of both films that we can see truly the sadness that all these characters are dealing with, and why they feel the need to escape (whether into drugs or other indulgences). In Trainspotting, the quiet moment is when Tommy takes the boys hiking. They refuse outright, the idea of enjoying nature foreign to them. In this scene, we see a complete inability to interact with the world they live in, a disconnect. They are lost in their own sad worlds, and the idea of expanding that sad world is an impossibility. In Requiem, the sad moment belongs to Tyrone. He has small dreams, little goals in the world, but to him they are is whole world. His goal is not to succeed, but to not fail, to be anything but a failure would be an accomplishment for him. It’s a pursuit of neutrality, for simplicity and little joys, and yet he is still not able to achieve it. Our characters are default failures, so we can see why going further done the path of drugs is not a hard choice to make. In for a penny, in for a pound.

At the end of both films, we can hardly say there is a victory. In Requiem, our characters are left imprisoned, disabled, insane, or defiled. In Trainspotting, Renton may have the happy ending of escaping his friends with the money acquired through a drug deal, but he leaves one life for a world of complete unknown, and an inability to cope with the pressures of the real world. The films are gunshots in the night, warning signs for an unseen future. There is no glory, no peace, even in the “happy” ending. These are not films telling us to simply not do drugs, for they both ultimately understand the pain that can lead to this lurid escapism. Instead, the films are about hope, about the struggles needed to keep hope, and how we must never give into despair. Despair is an addiction itself, a well in which it is easy to wallow until the water overtakes you. There is sadness, and we must choose the joy. We must choose life.