‘You’re an addict, so be addicted. Just be addicted to something else’
Old habits die hard but to counterbalance an addiction with another one doesn’t help and, frankly, it’s not a smart move. Whether it has to do with an extra dose of drug or porn material, a film will always unfold a disreputable topic through an intense aestheticisation.
Mimetic dissipation upsets many in several regards and when Trainspotting was released in 1996, it was accused of celebrating heroin. 20 years went by since skinhead, pale Ewan as Mark Renton and his clique of stoned outcasts journeyed around Edinburgh, drugs and the Thatcher era. The ‘reformation’ of Ewan McGregor after the first Trainspotting has brought him to a state of moderation more appropriate to a high profile Holly actor. But if the lack of moderation gave McG the impulse to a bright acting career, well, Fuck the moderation! McGregor seemed to have overcome the addiction thanks to various Star Wars, some memorable on-screen smooches with Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Velvet Goldmine and Nicole Kidman in the bohemian Moulin Rouge and other successful involvements but, for all the real film buffs, he is still the jeans-and-Chucks boy lying down on the railway tracks in a scene of a film that has become a cult.
The trailer of T2: Trainspotting has just premiered and, if you haven’t watched it yet, try to image what’s going to happen years later.
Option 1: Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud have changed their lives and are planning a friend reunion where they’ll watch Christiane F. We children from the Bahnhof Zoo and drink Coke all night long.
Option 2: The four are going to sing karaoke all the Spice Girls’ songs and then count the pricks the needle has left on their arms to remember the good old times.
Option 3: They’re going to screw it up again.
Let me give you a clue: read once again the opening line of this review! There are pretty substantial guarantees the sequel makes capital out of. The screenplay by John Hodges is based on Porno, a novel by Scottish Irvine Welsh, the characters are the same- just less blonde but terrifically grown old-, there’s much debauchery for a Rating R or more, Born Slippy by Underworld should be on the soundtrack list and Danny Boyle is back to direction. Besides the good, the full-length preview shows unconvincing details for a cult-movie’s sequel: the photography by Anthony Dod Mantle is rather glossy and inapt for a movie about bad things, the story looks action-packed and far enough from the prequel’s drama and degradation like slut shaming and revenge porn, more moral than physical, might throw our expectations off centre.
T2: Trainspotting will hit cinemas on 27 January 2017 in the United Kingdom, 3 February in the United States and worldwide on February 10. Oh, who knows whether Begbie has forgiven Renton or…
