A sequel to Trainspotting could have been as bad an idea as picking up your old heroin habit. The 1996 movie was a perfect and efficient statement, a coming-of-age story told through the prism of drugs and petty crimeāAmerican Graffiti shot through with skag and Scottish brogues.
Director Danny Boyleās flamboyant filmmaking approach generally veers toward visual and sonic assault, but in spite of this, T2 Trainspotting looks inward rather than outward (and donāt worry, that clunky title is probably the worst thing about it). Rather than a traditional sequel, itās closer to something like Richard Linklaterās Before trilogy, in which we revisit familiar characters at different turning points in their lives. In T2ās case, the characters are nothing short of indelible, although you should have at least a passing familiarity with the first Trainspotting before embarking on the second.
In T2, Mark Renton (McGregor) hasnāt been seen since he ripped off his best matesāheās started a new life in Amsterdam, but a coronary episode and his motherās death send him back to Edinburgh. Spud (Ewen Bremner) is still caught in the cycle of addiction, as hapless and pitiable as ever. Begbie (Carlyle) has spent most of the intervening 20 years behind bars, although his psychotic tendencies havenāt diminished one bit. And bleached-blond Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) prefers to be called Simon nowāand heās changed his drug of choice from heroin to cocaineābut he hasnāt given up his grifterās ways, roping in his maybe-girlfriend Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) to some tawdry blackmail schemes.
Thereās tons of plot in T2āthe four men, who forgive and donāt forgive each other to varying degrees, embark on a series of shady endeavorsābut very little of it matters. What does matter are the characters and performances, which are superb, particularly Bremnerās Spud, whose idiotic faƧade hides a poetic soul, and Millerās Simon, a figure of agitated narcissism and continually wounded pride. Carlyleās Begbie, naturally, is just as hilarious and terrifying as heās ever been. McGregor might be the weak linkāyou can tell this guyās been a pampered movie star for the past 20 years. It does work with his character, though, as Renton is someone whoās wholly disassociated himself from his past.
T2 overplays its hand at times, and Boyle seems particularly frenzied, cramming far too many visual ideas into whatās primarily a character-driven story. He incorporates footage from the original Trainspotting, which sometimes works and sometimes doesnāt. Screenwriter John Hodge, too, juggles a few unnecessary elements, although he retains the essence of novelist Irvine Welshās source material. (T2 is based partly on unused sections of Welshās original novel and the 2002 sequel Porno, but itās mostly newly concocted stuff.) Nonsensical sequences sit alongside really great ones, and the filmās reliance on Veronika makes the whole thing a bit wobbly. Perhaps Boyle and Hodge sensed the need to inject a woman into this very laddish story, but Veronikaāa gorgeous Bulgarian a full two decades younger than these Scottish loutsāis a pure figment, a wise and magical hooker with a heart of gold who acts as the balm to these man-boysā troubled relationships.
Still, what T2 does well, it does astonishingly well. More than a few scenes are hysterically funny, and more than a few escapades are white-knuckled fun. But what sticks with me are the things I never thought Iād get out of a Trainspotting movieāthe smart, emotional things it has to say about friendship and the passage of time. It knows how much it sucks to get old, and how hard it is to change our nature. But it also shows us, through these remarkably drawn characters, that thereās always a compulsion to keep trying to get it right.