Let's discuss the ending

I never viewed it as a "happy" ending technically, but I guess a positive one. He's shedding his old life which was holding him down in every way and now he has an option of making a better future. To me it really doesn't matter how he got the money, it's the fact that it's an opening and a way for him to be "normal" if he wants to be. But you also get the hint that he might go back to drugs and/or might not want the "normal" life after all. A great ambiguous ending. Just my opinion.


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dies ist meine unterschrift

At least he wants a future. Many junkies would have just shot all the cash up their arm. But that's why people use drugs in the first place - they feel like they don't have a future. When you hit hard times (or worse still, are born into that sort of life) and are living off the dole you just can't get ahead and many can't see a way out of it, it's all about instant gratification and escapism. he did bloody well to even get where he was in the end.

Any ending that does not involve him being a heroine junkie should automatically be viewed as positive. The fact that, at the beginning, he criticized the life he later wants to lead only shows that his character had an arc.

I know what you're saying. The end didn't feel positive to me, due to the point that was made earlier about there basically always being the chance to relapse at any time (the final hits bit) and Rent throwing his sobriety away like it was nothing.

I think it was meant to depict uncertainty about his future. He has a little money, he can function and find a sense of content sober, he recognizes and wants this to be a new beginning. But with his history and the nature of addiction, will he not relapse?

I believe the positivity of the ending was more a reflection of the moment regarding the high he received from scoring the money and him telling himself it was a good move and that he can turn it around (not that he is assuredly going to). I don't think it extends beyond that. I don't think it says anything concrete about the future of the character besides uncertainty.

It's the exact ending you get from "The Graduate" and "The Bell Jar" and other media/books like that. Basically, it leaves you with an emptiness. Not sure if it's a positive or negative ending or how you're really supposed to feel.

I can understand how you feel. As others have mentioned, the ending leaves a similarly empty feeling rather than an outright positive one. Hence the lasting appeal of both movies. However, it's also ambiguous and how you interpret the ending might depend on your personal feelings towards Mark's choices. Personally, I think any life would be a step forward from the even more empty existence he was leading at the beginning of the film, which is why he continually tried to get away from it. Even if the money was ill-earned, I think Mark did what he had to do to abandon his old lifestyle.

See you in hell, candy boys!

It’s a good ending except for the fact that Renton doesn’t seem to realise that his ‘mates’ would never let him get away with stealing their money. These are criminals, and Begbie is a particularly vicious psychopath with strict morals and a knife - he’d spend every waking moment looking to stick it in Renton and get his money back, and Sick Boy would be right alongside him.

Renton smiles at the end and ‘chooses life’, but in reality he’d have about a week before at least one of them found him.