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:

Passengers

(Warning: contains spoilers for Passengers)

If this picture doesn't go here, the thumbnail for the link will be of T2 which would be very confusing.

I wish trailers could develop the art of showing less.  Over the past year (in particular, for some reason), I've seen a joke, an action sequence, a reveal that would have packed a huge punch if I had been watching it "fresh" for the first time, rather than for the 15th because of trailers.  Here are three examples off the top of my head:

1.  Doctor Strange
Chiwetel Ejiofor's character gives Benedict Cumberbatch's a piece of paper with an unfamiliar word on it. 
"Is this my mantra?" wonders Cumberbatch. 
"No," says Ejiofor "it's the Wifi password.  We're not barbarians."
Nice line the first time.  Diminishing returns.

2.  Trainspotting 2
Spud appears to fall off a high rise building in Edinburgh, before being caught by Renton just before he hits the ground.

What I assume to be a beautiful moment of tension, which I'm now anticipating.

3.  Passengers
Jennifer Lawrence tells Michael Sheen that she and Chris Pratt are on a date.  The camera pans down to show that he is an android, human from the waist up, metal from the waist down.

I mention this, because Sheen's entrance in the film is a surprise and confusion.  Pratt's character, Jim, wakes up on the Avalon, a spaceship on a 120-year mission to reach Homestead II where the 5000 passengers and 247 crew will set up their new home.  A computer glitch leads to Jim's hibernation pod awakening him.  He realises he is 30 years into the journey, no one else is awake, and he has no way of going back to sleep.  In his befuddled state he wanders round this state of the art deck seeing no one until he catches sight of Arthur (Sheen), bartending to nobody.  Conversation ensues, and Arthur doesn't give any clues that the situation is anything less than normal.  Until he goes to pour Jim a drink, and we (and Jim) realise that Arthur is not human.  That would have been a great reveal, had the trailers not told me.
"Just don't watch trailers, then" is the obvious solution.  The problem is that trailers are everywhere.  I saw the trailer for this film, for example, during advert breaks on television, before YouTube videos downloaded, at the cinema waiting for other films to start, on giant screens in the middle of city centres.  It was a trailer that was impossible for me to miss.  Conversely, it also made the film intriguing enough that I wanted to watch it.  No win situation.
The flip of this is that I saw the trailer for La La Land repeatedly since August.  I knew it excited me, I knew wanted to see it, I hadn't a clue what it was about. 
Conclusions:
1.  It is possible to give a spoiler free gist of a film to whet the appetite.
2.  For some reason, the majority of film companies don't like this approach.

Back to Passengers.  I'll be honest, I liked this film a lot more than I was expecting to.  The main criticism I had heard about it was it's ethical dilemma, and I was unsure what to make of it myself.  Jim, after a year by himself, happens upon the hibernation pod of Aurora (Jennifer Lawrence).  He likes the look of her, reads her files and profiles, and then spends a considerable amount of time wrestling with the decision of whether to wake her too and condemn her to the same lonely death as him.  It's not a decision taken lightly, the tipping point coming when Jim finds himself considering suicide.  It is not good for man to be alone.  He wakes her.  I understand that there's been some criticism of this decision.  There are arguments that it's a "bit stalkery" at best, or another example of a man exerting his authority over a passive woman.  I don't think it's an issue because I think the film resolves it. 

Aurora and Jim have a really good time together, until she discovers what he has done and goes berserk.  She challenges what he has done, physically attacks him, and refuses to engage with him further, thus condemning him back to his lonely life.  And for Jim's part?  He agrees with her.  He accepts her response.  He doesn't even try to explain what he's done.  He knows it was - for want of a better phrase - an assault, and not her choice.  He knows he was wrong.  Horrible circumstances led him to make a horrible choice, which has horrible consequences for her - but I think this film and these characters come to resolution about this, which does not excuse his actions.

Yeah, the reason is that you woke her up.
Idiot.

Overall, it's an interesting film and not (in my opinion) deserving of the criticism it got.  It poses a number of interesting questions and ideas - what would you do in similar circumstances, how AI is almost human (but not quite), can anything actually replace human interaction?  Worth seeing, and (as with most space films) worth seeing on a big screen.


Additional thoughts, comments and questions.
1.  The division in passenger types is an interesting gimmick.  Jim is a discounted passenger who can have basic amenities because he has paid for a lower ticket.  Even in his year by himself, he cannot access any of the higher class passenger amenities.

2.  The spaceship malfunctions and tried to kill them.  This seems to happen a lot with spaceships in films.  Maybe we stay on Earth, people.

3.  How well would any of us do if left without company for a year.  Not very well, according to this study:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/07/people-would-rather-be-electrically-shocked-left-alone-their-thoughts