T2 TRAINSPOTTING

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4 stars
Picking up some twenty years after the events of Trainspotting and opportunity turned to betrayal, this highly anticipated sequel is a sad, nostalgic yet thoroughly entertaining affair which underlines that no matter how much you try to choose life, mostly life ends up choosing you.
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Former junkie Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) has cleaned up yet returned to the only place he can really call home; a squalid corner of Scotland even more run down than it once was. In situ are Spud, still an addict; aspiring brothel owner Sick-Boy (now Simon) who still nurtures an enormous grudge; and jail escapee Begbie who is still a violent sociopath. Some things, says Danny Boyle’s sprightly film, you can’t escape, and here is one corner of Scotland where life appears to have changed yet remains exactly the same.

T2 Trainspotting is a delightfully circular affair that mines its own history as the three friends attempt to carve a new future by way of Simon’s brothel, and outrun a vengeful Begbie. Nostalgia is waiting in every corner as their past continues to haunt them, and haunt the film that folds in on its current and former selves – there’s no escaping the future says Boyle and writer John Hodge, and they do so inventively while nodding to inevitability. When their trio take a train to pay respects to their late friend Stuart, they’re paying respects to Trainspotting itself; a clever moment made even better as Simon accuses Renton of taking a holiday in his youth. Or there’s Renton’s ‘Choose Life’ monologue updated to reveal the agony of being blindsided by a digital future. “Well there you are then,” he says after a short pause, as much to himself as to his audience. It’s very telling.

Boyle’s signature visual flourishes and pounding score heighten the reality of the story, bringing hyper-focus, hyper-colour and hyper-tension to black-and-white details – Spud’s attempted suicide for instance. It also serves to heighten emotion in all its sad and scary, funny and frightful moods. Ultimately it gets to the simple truth that makes T2 Trainspotting such a visceral experience – that the bright dreams of youth are nearly always subsumed by the shattering realisation that few of us get to choose anything at all. Life chooses us. Or put another way, growing old sucks.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Event Cinemas, Sydney, on 6 February 2017
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STARRING
Ewan McGregor
Ewen Bremner
Johnny Lee Miller
Robert Carlyle

DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle

SCREENWRITER
John Hodge

COUNTRY
UK

CLASSIFICATION
R18+

RUNTIME
117 minutes

AUSTRALIAN
RELEASE DATE
February 23, 2017
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T2 Trainspotting (2017) on IMDb
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