T2 Trainspotting (18)

IT might seem like tempting fate to take a modern British classic, a near-perfect synergy of time, place, source material, writer, director and performers, and take it around the block for a second time, 20 years later. Surely the Trainspotting sequel would end in tears.

Then again, how could we ever doubt Danny Boyle? And far from being a routine and disposable cash-in on a potent brand, T2 Trainspotting is a minor triumph. While replicating the original’s energy, humour and milieu, this is a logical and thrilling film in its own right, with its own pulse and profundity.

Writer John Hodge has again devised a cracking script, based on Irvine Welsh’s original novel and its follow-up, Porno, while making the passage of time in the story tally with real time.

So it’s 20 years too since Renton (Ewan McGregor) deserted his mates and ran off to Amsterdam with the collective spoils of their drug deal. But all is not right with him,

prompting a return to Edinburgh, where his old friends are trapped in a bubble.

Simon, aka Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) has moved from heroin to cocaine, works as a pimp and blackmailer and dreams of turning his aunt’s pub in Leith into a brothel. Spud’s addiction has cost him his family, and he is contemplating suicide. And Begbie (Robert Carlyle) has spent the whole time in jail – though unfortunately for all who know him, that is about to change.

Both Begbie and Sick Boy would dearly love to avenge themselves on Renton, and the plot revolves around whether they will achieve that. However, just as the first film’s rambunctious surface accompanied a serious reflection on drug addiction, so T2’s comedy and chase scenes are balanced with this film’s themes of friendship, nostalgia and regret.

Renton’s return forces all four to consider the disappointing course of their lives and the fact that the only sure thing they had – their friendship – has been broken. The question is, can any of them be redeemed?

The film’s concern with the past creates both entertainment and pathos. There’s a spectacularly funny comic sequence – utilising the Boyle trademarks of jaw-dropping imagery, rapid-fire editing and well-chosen soundtrack – in which Renton and Sick Boy relive their old passions, from George Best to James Bond, riffling on their memories to Sick Boy’s wryly amused girlfriend and would-be brothel-keeper Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova). In contrast, even the psychotic Begbie can be undone by melancholy: when reminded of his vagrant father, perhaps the source of all his own failings, he briefly achieves a moment of grace with his own son.

Boyle serves up this nostalgia through plangent flashbacks, accompanied by echoes of the first film’s iconic soundtrack, and through the sub-plot of Spud’s decision to write down his own memories. And the actors happily accentuate the effect of time on their faces, whether it be the savage grimace that fixes Miller’s, or the grey-haired fullness of Carlyle’s.

It’s a shame that Kelly Macdonald is reduced to a cameo. But the principals all deliver. T2 reminds us that Bremner is one of the UK’s most effective character actors, that few can terrify quite like Robert Carlyle, and that McGregor really is one of the world’s most charismatic leading men, whose only career failure is in not finding more characters like Renton.

Hodge has written a new version of Renton’s iconic “Choose Life” monologue, which reflects the pessimism that comes with disappointed middle age, despatched by McGregor with customary aplomb. T2’s existence makes perfect sense. And it will now own its own legacy, as that rare animal – the worthy sequel.

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