WITTY `TRAINSPOTTING' DELIVERS SOBERING LESSON IN ADDICTION.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

Seldom does an independent film arrive with as much sense of event as ``Trainspotting,'' the curiously named Scottish import that has become a cult phenomenon in the British Isles.

Sprung from Irvine Welsh's 1993 novel, this mordantly witty comedy of loyalty and betrayal among a group of disenchanted young heroin addicts in Edinburgh, Scotland, has become England's second-highest-grossing movie ever, after ``Four Weddings and a Funeral.''

Whether its appeal, rooted in a downbeat worldview that is presumably native to those gloomy isles, can translate to the U.S. (and surmount its characters' thick dialects and street slang) remains to be seen.

But as one of the few movies to capture the spirit and pulse of a youth culture, however marginal, without a tinge of condescension, ``Trainspotting'' is standout contemporary filmmaking.

At the outset, narrator and main character Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) gives us his credo while skedaddling through the streets to escape the cops: Life is for boring middle-class losers, so he's choosing heroin.

If you can go along with his anti-establishment rant, you're in for a dark, raucously funny ride, one that displays far more imagination and verve than its characters do in considering their futures.

Renton and his friends - Spud, Sick Boy, Tommy and Begbie - look like a '90s rock band on the ramble. They may be lowlifes, but the movie, by the same team that made the 1994 thriller ``Shallow Grave,'' renders them with soul, humor and unflinching comprehension.

For once you've developed a ``sincere and truthful junk habit,'' as Renton puts it, you can live in the moment - all you have to worry about is scoring again.

Life comes down to music, sex and blissing out on the floor of a ratty squat, eyelids fluttering and limbs twitching. As Renton declares, ``What people forget about heroin is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it.''

Though Renton, a middle-class boy, tries now and then to kick the habit, he always slides back down again.

The movie constantly raises the question, ``How low can you go?'' - and the answer is, lower and lower.

In a scene sure to be talked about, Renton dives into a filthy public toilet to retrieve drugs. It's part reality, part hallucination - the filmmakers giddily demonstrating their ability to get inside these characters' mental states and paint cockeyed and horrific pictures with them.

Much like American director Gus Van Sant, who moves brilliantly between hallucination and reality in gentler movies like ``My Own Private Idaho'' and ``Drugstore Cowboy,'' director Danny Boyle pushes the film medium as far as he can (amazingly far, on a $2.5 million budget) to achieve the maximum expression of his characters' inner lives.

McGregor (``Shallow Grave''), who shed 28 pounds to play Renton, says as much with his wired, long-limbed body as he does with his open face and edgy intelligence, giving us the one character with even a flicker of conscience.

It's impossible to separate the tone of the movie from its pulsing Brit pop soundtrack, which features Blur, Elastica and Pulp as well as classic punk rockers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

Much like punk music, ``Trainspotting'' is intelligent, nihilistic and probably incomprehensible to members of the establishment. Above all, it's fun. Rock on.

THE FACTS The film: ``Trainspotting'' (R; drug use, language, sex, nudity, violence).

The stars: Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Kelly Macdonald.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by John Hodge, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh. Produced by Andrew Macdonald.

Running time: One hour, 30 minutes.

Playing: Cineplex Odeon Showcase, Hollywood; AMC Century 14, Century City; AMC Santa Monica.

Our rating: Three Stars.

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Photo: An underage schoolgirl played by Kelly Macdonald and a heroin addict portrayed by Ewan McGregor link up for a wild time in ``Trainspotting.''