‘Trainspotting 2’ – Review

The long awaited Trainspotting 2 finally hit the big screens last Friday. Fans have waited nearly 20 years to see the sequel, a deliberate move from Danny Boyle to see the characters ageing naturally, which seems to have paid off, and the youth of the first film is far out on the horizon. Despite this, or perhaps even because of this, the film is a surprising success.

Sequels are often renowned for being poor hall-of-mirror versions of their predecessors, especially in the case of popular films. They rely on tacky throwbacks and the fact the audience enjoyed the first one enough to pay to see more of the same but not as well done. However Trainspotting 2 bore its roots gracefully, with minimal and what I thought to be rather tasteful references to the first film. It felt nostalgic rather than clutching. Perhaps more importantly, it felt older but in the same way incredibly new. The haphazard feeling of the first film (the organised chaos is what made it what it was; it was so essential to its story) was still present, but in a way which was much more cleverly and deliberately thought out, and so it worked to a greater effect. The extreme use of angles and perspective are still present, with the off-kilter camera work that feels integrally wrong but works so well is alive and kicking, but with some maturity the first film lacked. It felt as though it in many ways managed to be more clearly what the rough and ready Trainspotting had wanted to be, and maybe this reflects Boyle’s age and change in technique.

Trainspotting was in its own right a masterpiece. Like the novel it was based on, it managed to be brave and new and shocking, but always careless, shrugging with an effortless skill and moving on. This film was strikingly more deliberate, and it suited the characters well. Since the first film had tapped into the zeitgeist so surely and completely, this film could have easily fallen into the trap of being a middle-aged, angry grasping at the long forgotten past. The razor-sharp cynicism of the first film replaced with bitterness, and the harsh discontent with resentment and whining acrimony. However, the well- loved characters seemed to age like fine wine, and stay finely tuned and outside expectations. Young men in middle-aged shells who have become exactly what they hated. This seemed to translate better in film than it did in the book.

Trainspotting 2, only loosely based on Porno (its literary equivalent in the series) seems to have done the opposite of its predecessor. The first book, a ground-breaking work that is universally recognised as such, almost felt like a let down on screen. Although the first film was not by any means terrible, it was never quite the book; too much was lost. Here, glimpses of Porno are seen, but these are slim glimmers and this may be for the best. Since you are so unable to draw any parallels, the film has taken on a life of its own, and the cinematography fills what the book missed. It was admittedly softer than the book, but not to a point of seeming tasteless or banal. The beauty that came with the style of the books was that it could make you feel almost as though you weren’t even reading. It is a skill in language which is rarely seen to such a brilliant and disarming effect, but one which Welsh mastered absolutely in those books, and it is this that I felt this film really captured in a way the first one didn’t. It wasn’t perfect, but it had a high bar to hit after the books and it is a difficult story to translate from paper. However, the performances of the actors and the elegance of the film meant it was as close as it could have gotten. It’s still a hard hitting and raw story, the likes of which are rare, which is what makes it so absolutely distinct and unique. A gracious love letter to the harsh realities captured beautifully in books like Trainspotting and Requiem For A Dream, and one which deserves recognition for its honesty and dignity.