Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough
After Trainspotting made him a cult icon, Irvine Welsh has continued to enjoy a successful career. Alongside penning over a dozen other novels, he’s written screenplays, branched into music, and had his works adapted for radio and theatre. Now, the author’s life and art are explored in Paul Sng’s documentary Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough.
The feature picks up with Welsh on the festival circuit in Canada. Alongside happily taking selfies with fans, he’s there to visit a clinic that does supervised psychedelic drug therapy. He’s wrapped in a blanket, blindfolded, and guided as he takes DMT. This moment becomes a sort of nexus point for the film as the discussion moves between nostalgic childhood memories and reflections on getting older, to near-death experiences and unpleasant encounters with the law. There’s no clear structure for how the movie moves from A to B. Instead, it all flows together as a stream of consciousness, as if viewers are following Welsh’s own thoughts.
Part of this deep dive into the writer’s life is to understand where the ideas for his books and characters came from. Clips from Trainspotting and Filth are used to articulate everything from Welsh’s thoughts on Scottish independence at the time to looking back on his past heroin addiction. Excerpts from his works read by the likes of Liam Neeson, Nick Cave and Stephen Graham likewise emphasise the connection between the author’s lived experiences and their art while also adding to the feature’s trancelike atmosphere.
At the centre of it all is Welsh himself. Embracing everything with a healthy dose of self-deprecation and self-awareness, he approaches every topic with humour and honesty. He mocks himself in one scene for becoming the person who works during book tours rather than going out drinking and playfully teases his wife for being posh in another. However, he’ll also bluntly state on a radio interview that he thinks some of his former friends have died from drug use.
In many ways, Reality Is Not Enough is as much of an extension of Welsh’s enigmatic personality as it is a supplement to his writing career. It’s funny, thoughtful and hallucinogenic. It’s pure Welsh, and it’s fantastic.
Andrew Murray
Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough is released nationwide on 26th September 2025.
Watch the trailer for Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough here:
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