Film Review: T2 Trainspotting (2017)
The creative team behind the film Trainspotting (1996) are back for the production of the classic 90s film’s sequel, T2: Trainspotting, released in 2017. All of the original actors reprise their roles in the sequel alongside the original writer and director behind the camera.
This movie casts the original in a nostalgic retrospection. The characters, whose vivacity and rebelliousness we remember from the original, are now disappointments as men who’ve survived into their 40s. They’ve each traded their heroin addictions for more socially acceptable ones, some more successfully than others. The Renton character, played by Ewan McGregor, comes back to his hometown 20 years after the ending of the first film and attempts to right the wrongs he left when he fled with their shares of the drug money. All of the characters face the same existential problems they had twenty years earlier, only now they’re older and more desperate. It seems the things they avoided in their youth are just as torturous as they imagined they’d be: things like staying clean, paying rent, finding one’s calling, and thinking about security in the future.
Tonally, the viewer can feel the film’s continuity with the original, making it difficult to think of the two films as separate pieces. (Even though the original still works better as a standalone movie.) The movie retains the original’s buoyant, kinetic camera movement and editing. However, the Begbie character becomes a kind of terror villain in the movie, which is slightly out of sync with the rest of the movie and out of stylistic continuity with the previous film. There is a subplot involving his character’s wife and son, which humanizes him somewhat, but for most of the film he’s depicted as a demented stalker like something out of a slasher movie. The film ultimately redeems itself from that flaw by having at least one of the characters find their unique talent to contribute to the good of society, which is I think is a more identifiable aspiration than seeking to exact revenge at all costs (which motivates the Begbie character).
Much of this film takes place at night, in distinction to the daylight scenes which dominated the original, making it a darker experience overall. By the end all of the characters, “tourists in their own youth”, get their dues and some even make amends, making the film ultimately an optimistic one.
The film delivers as a sequel to the original, with a loud and energetic soundtrack consisting completely of pre-existing pop and rock tracks from the same artists as the original, sharply delivered and acerbic dialogue written by screenwriter John Hodge, as well as the punky aesthetics that has characterized director Danny Boyle’s sprightly filmography.
