Themes: Faltering Friendships, Twentysomething Life, Party Film
Main Cast: Stephen McCole, Maurice Roeves, Garry Sweeney, Jenny McCrindle, Morgan Simpson, Simon Weir
Release Year: 1998
Country: UK
Run Time: 118 minutes
Plot
This adaptation of three stories from Irvine Welsh's short-story collection of the same name reunites Annie Louise Ross, Kevin McKidd, and Ewen Bremner from the author's previous cinematic success, Trainspotting, which was also set in the author's native North Edinburgh. In the Kafka-esque "The Granton Star Cause," a lazy amateur footballer (Stephen McCole) has a very, very bad day that culminates in God (Maurice Roeves) turning him into an insect. In "A Soft Touch," a young husband and father (McKidd) finds his life disrupted when a psychotic neighbor (Gary McCormack) takes up with his wife (Michelle Gomez) and invades his wretched tenement. And in "The Acid House," a druggie low-life (Bremner) experiences a Freaky Friday-style body switch with the infant son of a pair of self-involved yuppies. After "The Granton Star Cause" was screened separately at the Edinburgh Film Festival, the completed film was shown at Cannes in 1998. The title is a play on the term "acid house," a form of sinister dance music that emerged in Chicago in the mid-'80s and helped fuel the formative years of England's rave culture. Former Doctor Who actor Maurice Roeves, who plays God in "The Granton Star Cause," also has cameos in the other two segments. Jemma Redgrave, niece of Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave and cousin of Natasha and Joely Richardon, appears in the title segment and lends her Bjork-haired visage to the film's poster. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
Although it's fuelled by the same caustic imagination as Trainspotting, this misanthropic anthology is a very different sort of film from that cautiously optimistic art-house hit. Unfortunately, although it's certainly worth watching, it's also an inferior effort. Visually, The Acid House pops in all the right places, investing the slums of Edinburgh with manic color and rock & roll pizazz. BBC documentarian Paul McGuigan makes a smooth transition to fiction, staging soccer matches, meetings with God, dead-end lives, and apocalyptic drug trips with equal inventiveness. The performances, too, are quite fine, especially Stephen McCole as a put-upon young layabout, Michelle Gomez as a bitter and tarty young mum, and Jemma Redgrave as a marriage-obsessed raver. The film's problem, then, is its script, which piles on so many squalid episodes and so much willful transgression that viewers may well find their patience exhausted. A surly, hard-drinking God, a psychotic stud, and an out-there drug trip are fine and dandy, but a pair of S&M pensioners and a malformed, monstrously horny infant tip the scales a bit too far. All is not unrelentingly bleak, but even when the film's plots lighten up, the tone remains mean-spirited and self-satisfied. Welsh's work is always a study in intensity, but without a breather between laps, The Acid House becomes an endurance test. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Cast
Stephen McCole - Boab [The Granton Star Cause]
Maurice Roeves - God [The Granton Star Cause]
Garry Sweeney - Kev [The Granton Star Cause]
Jenny McCrindle - Evelyn [The Granton Star Cause]
Simon Weir - Tambo [The Granton Star Case]
Morgan Simpson - Chantal, Baby [A Soft Touch]
Iaian Andrew - [The Granton Star Cause]; Marnie Kidd - Chantal, Toddler [A Soft Touch]; Irvine Welsh - Parkie [The Granton Star Case]; Alison Peebles - Mother [A Soft Touch]; Pat Stanton - Barman [The Granton Star Case]; Joanne Riley - Diana [A Soft Touch]; Maurice Roeves - The Priest [The Acid House]; Alex Howden - Boab Snr [The Granton Star Case]; Sarah Gudgeon - New Girl [A Soft Touch]; Annie Louise Ross - [The Granton Star Cause]; Katie Echlin - Wendy [A Soft Touch]; Dennis O'Connor - PC Cochrane [The Granton Star Case]; William "Giggs" McGuigan - Pub Singer [A Soft Touch]; John Gardner - Sgt. Morrison [The Granton Star Case]; Kevin McKidd - Johnny [A Soft Touch]; Michelle Gomez - Catriona [A Soft Touch]; Tam Dean Burn - Alec [A Soft Touch]; Barbara Rafferty - Dr. Callaghan [The Acid House]; Gary McCormack - Workmate [The Granton Star Case]; Stephen Docherty - Nurse Boyd [The Acid House]; Scott Imrie - Pool Player [A Soft Touch]; Ronnie McCann - Andy [The Acid House]; Niall Greig Furlton - [A Soft Touch]; William Blair - Deck [A Soft Touch]; Cas Harkins - Skanko [A Soft Touch, The Acid House]; Ewen Bremner - Coco [The Acid House]; Martin Clunes - Rory [The Acid House]; Jemma Redgrave - Jenny [The Acid House]; Arlene Cockburn - Kirsty [The Acid House]; Jane Stabler - Emma [The Acid House]; Doug Eadie - Coco's Father [The Acid House]; Andrea McKenna - [The Acid House]; Malcolm Shields - Workmate [The Granton Star Case]; Billy McElhaney - Felix the Paramedic [The Acid House]; Stewart Preston - Rafferty [The Granton Star Case]; Ricky Callan - Tam the Driver [The Acid House]
Credit
Jean Kerr - Art Director, Rohan Banyard - Art Director, Alan Brereton - Associate Producer, Carolynne Kidd - Associate Producer, Pam Tait - Costume Designer, Lynn Aitken - Costume Designer, Neil Calder - First Assistant Director, Paul McGuigan - Director, Andrew Hulme - Editor, Fiona Winning - Location Manager, Barry Adamson - Composer (Music Score), Marilyn Macdonald - Makeup, Richard Bridgland - Production Designer, Mike Gunn - Production Designer, Alasdair Walker - Cinematographer, Sara Barr - Production Manager, David Muir - Producer, Alex Usborne - Producer, Brian Howell - Sound/Sound Designer, Irvine Welsh - Screenwriter, Simon Giles - Visual Effects Supervisor, Mark Berger - Re-Recording Mixer, Karen McConnell - Second Assistant Director, Beverly Syme - Assistant Location Manager, Gerard Roche - Assistant Sound Editor, Marc Bolan - Featured Music, Primal Scream - Featured Music, Nick Cave - Featured Music, Oasis - Featured Music, Beth Orton - Featured Music, The Verve - Featured Music
The 1998 film, directed by Paul McGuigan, dramatises three stories from the book:
The Granton Star Cause is a comedy, where Boab is having a very bad day indeed. His parents throw him out so they can indulge in sado-masochism and he is sacked from his job, dumped by his girlfriend and dropped from his football team. It has elements of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, as a pitiless God who transforms him into a fly as punishment for wasting his life.
A Soft Touch: Kevin McKidd plays a cuckolded husband while Gary McCormack is Larry, the ruthless upstairs neighbour who steals his electricity and his wife, played by Michelle Gomez.
The Acid House: An acid trip and a bolt of lightning result in amiable schemie Coco Brice exchanging places with the baby of a middle class couple.
All three sections are independent, but are linked by setting and by the reappearance of incidental characters, in particular Maurice Roëves who appears variously as an inebriated wedding guest, a figure in a dream, and a pub patron. All three of his parts symbolize a human manifestation of God.
The film offended elements of the UK tabloid press with a depiction of a cynical and jaded, foul-mouthed God, and in some countries (such as Canada and the United States) has been shown on television with subtitles because of most characters' heavy Scottish accents.
