There was a tremendous sense of atmosphere before Choose Irvine with the man himself arriving and looking sharp.
When the film, directed by Ian Jeffries, concentrates on Welsh’s early life in Edinburgh and London, as well as what fuelled Trainspotting, it is captivating. He never comes across as overtly ambitious or someone who wanted to be famous but just took it all in his stride. We find out Trainspotting derived from old journals and Welsh writing non-stop in places such as Greyhound buses while travelling across America and when he moved back to Edinburgh in the early 90s.
When Irvine explains how his writing was infused by writing long reports for Edinburgh Council there’s real magic here. The film goes wrong when we start to hear from too many talking heads and it becomes bitty and confused. Do we need to know that Martin Compston rates Trainspotting in his top three films along with The Godfather and Goodfellas? There’s a sleazy tale with Welsh almost recreating his Mikey Forrester character, he doesn’t quite dispense opium suppositories but it’s not far off. It’s a cringe moment that belongs in the pages of a lads’ mag from the 90s.
There’s also a lot of backslapping from friends, we are told that Irvine is nice to his fans and what a great guy he is. The long-winded press junkets are another snore-fest. What works better is when we hear those with a sincere connection to the man such as local actor Gary McCormack, who delivered a memorable performance as Larry in The Acid House.
A few of the actors from The Acid House such as Simon Weir are good on camera but there needs to be more context, it would have been interesting to bring in their experience of the film rather than the Trainspotting 2 junket. Gail Porter also knows how to tell a story on camera, her contributions are both funny and insightful. Iggy Pop also brings a real star quality while adding his intuitive perceptions as a genuine influence of Trainspotting.
The recent success of Crime would have brought things up to date and while it gets a mention there is nothing from Welsh’s fellow Hibee Dougray Scott. Irvine Welsh is one of the great storytellers of our times and as the film suggests Trainspotting changed everything.
There’s a good film here somewhere but this isn’t it.
