A lot has happened since we first saw Ewan McGregor dash through the streets of Edinburgh to the boisterous tune of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”: a new century – nay, millennium – began; the World Trade Center was destroyed and rebuilt; a black man served as President of the United States; Britain voted to secede from the European Union; three different actors have played three different incarnations of Spider-Man; McGregor became a star. By now, the 1990s have faded far enough into the past that fiction set then might be labeled a “period piece”.
Yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is especially true in pop culture. The Simpsons and The X-Files still churn out new episodes. Roland Emmerich still orchestrates apocalyptic alien invasions. Tom Cruise still finds ways to complete impossible missions. People still obsess over the Clinton marriage and the O.J. Simpson trial. We don’t truly move on from the past, it seems, instead circling around it in continual loops.
So, here we are, once again watching Ewan McGregor dash through the streets of Edinburgh. T2 Trainspotting finds Mark Renton (McGregor) returning to his hometown 20 years after he stole ₤12,000 from his friends. He had been settled in Amsterdam with a financial consulting job and a marriage going on 15 years, clinging to sobriety thanks to a rigorous exercise regimen. “Be addicted,” he advises another character. “Just be addicted to something else.”
His former pals aren’t so well-off. Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller) dabbles in cocaine and pulls cons with his sort-of girlfriend, Veronika Kovach (Anjela Nedyalkova). Daniel “Spud” Murphy’s (Ewen Bremner) chronic addiction has led to unemployment and estrangement from his family. Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is stuck in prison, plotting escape and revenge. Naturally, Mark reunites with Sick Boy and Spud, and before long, he gets drawn back into a life of drugs and petty crime.
The plot has about as much substance as a haze of smoke; it’s beside the point, a flimsy excuse for zany escapades, irreverent banter, and winking callbacks. T2 Trainspotting borrows liberally from its predecessor, recycling song cues (a remix of “Lust for Life” features prominently) and reconstructing exact shots (Mark stares into a car windshield with wild-eyed intensity). Old clips surface like flashes of memory. There’s a version of the “choose life” monologue, updated for the social media age. There’s a passing nod to Mark’s famous dive down the toilet that seems to contain the whole world’s filth.
However, for all its familiarity, the movie doesn’t feel redundant. A pulse beats beneath the retro veneer, a quiet, electric sense of urgency that suggests this was made out of genuine desire rather than obligation. Is T2 Trainspotting necessary? Probably not. But it is so dynamic, so alive, I can almost believe otherwise.
If nothing else, it renewed my appreciation for Danny Boyle. When Trainspotting hit theaters in 1996, the English-Irish director blew minds with his kinetic visual style and hip musical taste; he depicted addiction like war, simultaneously visceral and surreal, danger and excitement blended together in an intoxicating cocktail. Over the years, the MTV aesthetic he helped popularize, along with other ‘90s art house filmmakers like David Fincher and Sofia Coppola, has become a cliché, infiltrating everything from (500) Days of Summer to Sucker Punch to Mr. Robot. Boyle remains as compelling as ever, though, his anarchic edge visible even in prestige fare, such as the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire or the Oscar-baiting Steve Jobs.
While T2 Trainspotting lacks the transgressive audacity of the original, it has a cool confidence that reflects years of experience behind the camera. Boyle’s stylistic flourishes (floating text, off-kilter angles) animate the proceedings without overwhelming them, and DP Anthony Dod Mantle displays a keen eye for space, juxtaposing confined interiors with expansive landscapes. Of course, the soundtrack is impeccably curated, particularly in its evocative use of the Scottish hip-hop group Young Fathers.
That careful calibration extends to the acting. Miller, Bremner, and Carlyle slip comfortably into their respective characters, grounding their outsized personalities in humanity. Kelly MacDonald only appears in a one-scene cameo, but she makes the most of it; there’s a whole story in her smile. Newcomer Nedyalkova lends depth to what’s ostensibly a rote femme fatale role. Holding it all together is McGregor, hair cropped in a crew cut, grown more subdued with age but no less charismatic. His eyes and slightly slumped posture convey the sadness at the core of the film.
Early on, Mark reveals that his life isn’t as peachy as he claimed. In fact, it’s falling apart: he’s getting divorced; he’s about to lose his job in a merger; and he was recently diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome. He didn’t return to Scotland out of nostalgia, but because he had nowhere else to go. T2 Trainspotting is ultimately a sobering portrait of regret disguised as a breezy caper. It’s littered with reminders of time: clocks, trains, the actors’ worn faces, deserted or demolished buildings. Mark and his cohorts are modern society in microcosm, filling their days with shallow pleasures to distract themselves from the emptiness. In some ways, they are the same people they were 20 years ago. But nihilism is for the young; in your 40s, it’s just depressing.
Meta commentary is hardly unusual in a franchise installment (remember Jurassic World?), but T2 Trainspotting doesn’t apologize for itself. It embraces its disposability. After all, don’t all things become irrelevant at some point? A movie that once captured the zeitgeist like lightning in a bottle will, two decades later, look like a relic. That’s the trouble with being hooked on the present: before you know it, it’s gone.
Writing Sandcastles 