T2: Trainspotting

(warning: contains spoilers for T2: Trainspotting and Trainspotting)

"So what have you been up to for the past 20 years?"

What have any of us been up to?  Surely Trainspotting wasn't 20 years ago?  Curse you, linear progression of time.  In 1996, John Major was the prime minister, it was the age of Britpop, Dolly the Sheep had just been cloned, the Spice Girls were starting out, and Trainspotting became the highest grossing British film of the year.

When I was younger...

The original followed a group of heroin addicts in a deprived area of present-day Edinburgh and ended with a major drug deal which landed main characters Renton (Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Spud (Ewan Bremmer) with £16,000.  Renton steals the money, leaves some for Spud, and flees.  T2 pretty much checks in with these characters 20 years later.

What results is that most unusual of things - a great sequel, aware of its roots, and keen to continue the story it started and add a bit.  Everything is the same but different, from the characters to the city itself.  You can see it's 1996 self, but it's not quite that anymore.  Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie and Spud are now Mark, Simon, Francis and Murphy.  They're pretty much where we expect them to be.  Mark is now clean, still running, but its a more sedate pace on a treadmill rather than the run-for-your-life of the original.  He moved to Amsterdam, and has been there since 1996, coming back only because life has demanded it.  Francis is in prison, denied parole, planning an escape by self injury and banking on the incompetence of G4S the service in charge of the fictitious HMP Edinburgh.  Simon is pimping out his girlfriend to high end clients, and then extorting money from them in exchange for secrecy about their sordid sex acts while snorting a lot of cocaine.  Spud is still a heroin addict, sad and alone because he doesn't quite understand a world without drugs ("but I gave you £4000" says Mark in disbelief, "Aye, but I'm a fucking heroin addict so what did you think I was going to spend it on" spits Murphy).  

So much younger than today...

Their lives are all clearly marked by the theft of the £16,000, but those marks appear differently.  Francis' explosive reaction at the end of Trainspotting brought him to prison, and his intention is to enact revenge upon Mark.  Simon is convinced that his life would have been so different if he hadn't been betrayed - to the extent that when Mark is able to give him £4000 he doesn't know what to do with it ("what am I supposed to do with that?  Buy a fucking time machine?").  Simon cannot give up his victim-hood, unwilling to admit that his life may have been exactly the same if Mark had not betrayed him ("or maybe you're angry because you'd have done exactly the same if you'd thought of it first").  Spud (for he is still Spud) clearly feels the loss of Mark's influence on his life, and if he perceives the betrayal he's not actively defined by it in the way Simon and Francis are.  For Mark's part, there is guilt and attempts at reparation - money for Simon, attention for Spud as he tries to help him channel his energies away from heroin ("you're an addict.  So be addicted.  Just be addicted to something else.")  Hijinks ensue, friendships are rekindled, and someone gets water boarded with Irn Bru.  The characters examine their memories of 1996 and try to reconcile then and now as honestly as they can (with nods to Tommy and baby Dawn, and their parts in their demises).  Memories are funny, are sad, are bitter, are sweet.

Like it or not, age has changed them all, and when they try to recapture the people they once were, it doesn't quite work.  They can't quite run as fast or for as long.  Their bodies are letting them down.  The next generation are unfathomable.  The city doesn't quite feel like the one they knew.  The worst toilet in Scotland is no longer acceptable to them (although there still "gross out moments" with explosive vomiting from the outset).

And from this, quietly, our allegiances change and we find ourselves rooting for Spud.  He changes the least but changes the most.  In being the ultimate loser, he becomes the ultimate winner.  He accepts himself, he accepts his life, and he finds peace in it where the others do not.  And he gets the ultimate Danny Boyle trope - the offer of all the money, which he rejects it because it means nothing to him.

I'll be honest, I don't love Trainspotting.  I can appreciate it, but it didn't quite hit at quite the right point in my life.  But I very much enjoyed T2.  It's an ode to friendship, age, reconciliation and nostalgia.  And there are a lot more trains than in the first film.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:

• Francis has been in prison for 20 years, but has an 18 year old son.  Has he just not added up those numbers?  He seems too volatile not to have thrown the fact in his wife's face if she had an affair.

• The two instances of defiance to Francis are interesting to me.  He rejects his son's lifestyle, and actively taunts him to become violent, but turns to grudging respect when his son faces him down.  Likewise, Francis openly mocks the idea that Spud has turned to writing, but becomes actively involved - almost happy - when Spud offers to read his stories out to him. 

• The women in this film are secondary characters, but they very much shape and influence the protagonists, and the plot.  They support the characters where possible, but are careful not to get sucked into the chaos (such is the life of those affected by the habitual drug user).  Gail removes herself (and little Fergus) from Spud's life, but remains on hand at a distance to offer support, read his manuscripts and house his belongings.  Mark's mum is notable by her absence, an actual shadow which Mark and his father are acutely aware of and brought together by.  She has kept Mark's room as it once was, but didn't make contact over the years.  Diane is not where Mark left her, but she does offer her professional advice at a "very reasonable" hourly rate, asks after him cordially but nothing more.  Veronicka constantly shapes her own future, and nudges Simon to do likewise but recognises him (and Mark.  And Spud for that matter) for what they are and exits.  June knows better than to attempt to argue or reason with Francis, so waits for him to burn off all his angry energy and slope off.  They initially seem like the passive characters of the film, but it quickly becomes apparent that they are just not reacting to the chaos anymore, and as such keeps themselves (and those around them) sane and safe. 
  

• As always, Danny Boyle's films are instantly recognisable by their style and soundtrack.  And in keeping with the theme of the film, both are current with a heavy dose of nostalgia.  I particularly liked the slow, instrumental version of Perfect Day, Mark starting (and then stopping) Lust for Life, and Silk (Wolf Alice).

• Life mimics art: