Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy... has got me more 'loved up' than ecstatic

Dear readers, life's got me a little bit behind and that includes my blog posts.  This is a short review I was working on for Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy after learning it was playing this week at the Projection Booth Theatres.  I'd written previously about attending the Renegade Film School screening and my tale of meeting Irvine Welsh.  This includes some material from that blog entry but focuses solely on the film.

If you are keen to see Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy, tomorrow is the last day it's screening so haul ass over to the Projection Booth East.  Again, apologies I didn't get this review posted earlier.

-A

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Currently playing at the Projection Booth is Irvine Welsh’s Ecstasy.  I know, you’re thinking “What’s playing at the where?”

This little movie that could actually screened at the Projection Booth East (there are two Projection Booth theatres in Toronto), a grungy little rep theatre on Gerrard St. in Leslieville, in late October as part of the Renegade Film School program.  This was a special screening as director Rob Heydon and the acclaimed author (of Trainspotting fame) himself, Irvine Welsh, were in attendance!

I'd never been to the Projection Booth theatre before, it's all exposed painted concrete and threadbare half-broken seats.  I'm not ashamed to admit I checked to make sure they were not mysteriously sticky before I sat down.  It was the perfect venue for a screening of Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy.

If you’re familiar with the novel of the same name by Welsh, it's based on the short story The Undefeated about Lloyd, partier/low level dealer/drug mule, who meets Heather, a young woman trying to escape her unhappy marriage.  They find happiness together but it's not without obstacles, not only must Lloyd figure out how to get out of his mounting debt with the shady Solo, there's trouble in paradise with Heather.  While she's willing to experiment and enjoys their partying lifestyle, she disapproves of his constant drug use and living for the weekend.  The wiki description puts it best..."they are faced with the question of whether they love their drugs, each other, or are just drugged into loving each other."

Welsh and Heydon kicked off the day's events with a 45 min candid conversation and Q&A, regaling us with tales about the trials and tribulations of getting this film made.  Heydon recounts in detail the numerous times funding fell through and other challenges that they faced.  It began 10 years ago as a UK/Canada co-production but a series of circumstances led it to be exclusively Canadian.  It was shot primarily in Sault Ste. Marie, with one day in Toronto, and a B-unit in Scotland and Amsterdam to give it that authenticity.

What winds up on the screen is an understated indie diamond in the rough.  It’s not going to win a lot of Oscars, and you’re not going to rave about its productions values (though I’ve had a lot of personal experience recreating club scenes and rave scenes for the camera, and I’d say the ones in Ecstasy are realistic and believable, no one’s getting over ambitious and I mean that in a good way), but it’s entertaining, engaging, relatively well-paced, authentic, and well adapted from what I remember of the short story.  Understanding the challenges in the making of the film made me appreciate the movie more.  Though it does feel like a film that should've been made 10 years ago, when slacker fiction was at the height of its popularity.  Treat it as nostalgia I say, there was a time when being a weekender and a high-functioning drug addict was a reality.  It’s definitely a period best relived exclusively through the movies.