When it comes to the closing night of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, there is no better choice to close things out than with a documentary following Scottish national treasure, and Edinburgh local, Irvine Welsh, the writer of the Scottish classic that defined a generation, Trainspotting.

Far from the first time that the writer has been the subject of a documentary, it was only two years ago that another project about the writer's life, Choose Irvine Welsh, also closed out EIFF. However, this may well be the most unique doc about Welsh that there is.

The key set piece of the picture comes in the form of Irvine's visit to a special clinic in Toronto, where, under supervision, he takes a trip on the hallucinogenic drug DMT. As Irvine lies there, in a DMT-trance, the picture bounces back and forth between his trip and footage of the writer taking us through his life, and his late-in-life battle with his own mortality.

There are none of your standard talking heads in this doc. Instead, the scenes of Irvine discussing his life are shown through a mixture of footage of Welsh on podcasts or live Q&As, as well as gorgeously shot footage of the writer backlit by archive footage and clips from adaptations of his work. By choosing to do things this way, director Paul Sng avoids the usual pitfalls of standard documentaries, which may have poorly impacted the movie.

The structure of the movie is very lucid, and may even come across as muddled and lacking focus to some members of the audience. However, this structure works perfectly to reflect the state of mind that Irvine is in throughout his trip, taking us on a journey through his life alongside the novelist. With the use of movie clips and book readings from the likes of Ruth Negga and Liam Neeson, the film is less a chronological account of Irvine's life and more about themes and moments in his life that reflect them.

Admittedly, this structure can impact the pacing of the feature at times, making it feel a chunk longer than its ninety-minute runtime. Thankfully, Irvine Welsh is such a fascinating subject that these issues are never enough to significantly detract from the quality of the documentary.

Given the subjects that Welsh tends to write about, as well as his notoriously graphic writing style, one might think Welsh would be like a character taken from the pages of one of his books, but Sng captures a side to him that the public rarely sees. Through several captured moments with his loved ones, we get to see Irvine as both a friend and as a loving husband to his wife, Emma. In doing so, the film captures how Irvine has changed not only throughout his life but also as a result of the DMT trip. It's a rare, vulnerable look at the writer, and the feature is all the better for it.

Despite the differences in the public and private personas of the writer, what is most impressive about the doc is the way in which it captures the true spirit of its subject and his work (a particular talent of Sng's across his filmography).

Representing the wit, humour, and brutal nature of some of his novels, this picture is an impressive feat in the execution of documentary filmmaking. Paul Sng's ability to put his subjects at ease is never more impressive here, capturing a refreshing side to the Scottish legend. Undoubtedly, Reality Is Not Enough will be remembered as the definitive documentary on Irvine Welsh.

Reality Is Not Enough was the Closing Night film at Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025