A favorite film... this is a film about drugs, but not only about drugs. It's a wonderful little surprise film about a beautiful love story, and redemption ("I don't want to be with you forever... I need to be with you forever."). The leads are marvelous together. Kristin Kreuk is a superb young actor, and a dream girl .. bit.ly/11dIBrp .. The entire cast is absolutely perfect. This is a terrific non-Hollywood film with few, if any flaws. And with a great film ending music track 'Movin On Up' by Primal Scream .. bit.ly/zvzqcK .. Am so glad decided to ignore the original rating numbers (and followed Kristin), it is SO much better than that (as evidenced by the fact it keeps creeping up in the ratings).

This movie falls so far from it's intended objectives that I almost wonder if it isn't some sort of multi-layered social joke that the director is playing on his audience. The entire film from start to finish feels as if a naive & innocent thirteen year old boy wrote and directed this embarrassing excuse for a motion picture film to impress his older brother who does drugs. Other than the stylishly ripped-off poster design, there is... LITERALLY.... nothing about this film that doesn't make you constantly cringe out of embarrassment for all involved.The first batch of reviews that give this movie a 10/10 MUST BE FAKE. There is no way that a person coherent enough to read and write English could possibly view this film as a "Must see film," or "Great Cast, Great Story," or my personal favorite: "The Definitive Film about Ecstasy and Clubbing Culture."Netflix now has this film, and, just like everyone else, was drawn to it out of love for Trainspotting. After quickly looking up the IMDb/Rotten Tomatoes ratings for the film (IMDB=4.7/10, and Rotten Tomatoes has it hovering around a 14%/100) I knew I probably wouldn't get my mind blown, but I wasn't expecting a film this truly awful.From the first scene which desperately tries to capitalize on the visual aesthetic of Trainspotting, the entire movie becomes an inconsistent mess of AWFUL acting, childish dialogue, flat and borderline nonexistent narrative, and of course there's the music. This film, adapted from one of the best counter-culture authors of the 20th century, had ALL THE WORK DONE FOR IT. All they had to do was properly rip off Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, apply it to this novel, and they would have at least an AVERAGE film. The entire premise revolves around emotionally exposing the 90's underground rave/club culture, and the entire soundtrack consists of, from what I can tell, the same four bars of the most generic "club beat" I've ever heard, and it only plays in the background of these small scale pathetic "rave" sequences where it becomes obvious that the scene consists of less than 20 extras generically moving in a basement while some cheap strobe lights try to mask the films budget and attempt to make it look like a pulsing, sweating, out-of- mind ecstasy club.So my advice to you is, watch it, but only if you have a morbid curiosity to see in real-time what it feels like to watch the careers of probably everyone involved get quickly erased out of history. I can't imagine trusting director, cinematographer (if you can call him that), or ANY of the actors or writers to coherently create a low-expectation soap opera episode, much less another film. I suppose I'm glad that it was made, so people know for certain how terrible all parties involved are at their respective craft.Embarrassing. I just spent ten minutes writing this to save you the pain of this film destroying what little expectations you might have from it.

If you are wondering what my summation above means then you most definitely belong in the same amateur film club as the writers of all of those glowing reviews. The fact that they put the Irvine Welsh name in the film title is an abomination. I was around in the 90's in the US club scene and have swallowed an uncountable number of E tabs during that time. I have also read Welsh's book and when I combine that with my own life experiences it makes me want to seek out this hack "director" Rob Heydon & turn him into a mute.When I consider how magnificent Boyle's adaptation of Trainspotting was and how gritty & real it was to the point that I often thought to myself wow the guy behind this had to be an actual addict, the surreal actualities that were involved. I'm also a recovering heroin addict(clean for 8 years)so I suppose you can say I have a good deal of insight into these two topics. Getting back to the real point, to the real problem of the huge void of reality & lack of reverse perspective in this film Ecstasy. I believe the only people keeping this film from completely drowning are young people who believe life is all fun & games, that the party never stops. People that have no perspective on what good film is that are simply drawn into the light of the drug content. Those who refuse to see the dark implications involved as their brain is slowly getting damaged pill by pill, the extreme depression, CNS complications & suicidal tendencies growing stronger by the TAB.

I wasn't sure if I would like the movie as I was a huge fan of Trainspotting and also Welsh's work but it totally blew me away. Hayden's direction manages to convey a real sense of the brutal underworld involved in the drug culture while unfolding the rather unconventional love story at the same time. Great performances from Sinclair and Kreuk but Billy Boyd simply stole the show for me (think Spud from Trainspotting meets Donkey from Shrek).Having read the book I think that Hayden and McCafferty eloquently captured the essence of the book and incorporated some really touching emotional scenes with Lloyd and his dying father, adding a slightly softer side to the movie. I'll be going to see this again and again and predict that it becomes as big a success as Trainspotting.