T2 Trainspotting [2017]: An Acid Trip Down the Memory Lane

“World changes, even if we don’t”

Can we ever run away from our past? Can we ever move on? Or do we forever remain the prisoners of things  that came before today? Can all the reds / blues / greens of the world, the numbing addictions and even the maddening ferocity of meaningless sexual escapades not deliver us from the fangs of nostalgia? Will the fundamental ‘what if’, hanging like a moth stuck in a spiderweb of life, always haunt our daydreams?




Picking the remnants after 20 years from the betrayal, we find that except Mark Renton, nobody has moved an inch in their lives. Spud still struggles with heroin addiction, Begbie got cut out in a jail for last two decades while Sick Boy, well, is making money howsoever he could. As characters find themselves in new drawn battles, Danny plunges his needle of stylistic vision straight into the crumbling lives to mark the mid-life crisis that lingers in every frame of this ambitious sequel to the cult hit, Trainspotting.

There are moments when Trainspotting 2 has a clear direction and then others, where it feels completely lost. Self-indulged to its core, Boyle’s love for the concept is as painfully haughty as it is attractively bold. Consider it the wisdom of age, Boyle pushes the eye of his camera away from the snorts or injections and inside the fractured hearts of his lead characters. Ever lingering feeling of decay and cyclic nature of time reigns supreme as Danny Boyle serves a rushed madness to the narrative.




We are back to the town, back to the old pyre of ambitions, to the graffitied streets flooding with broken video games and right back to the crudeness of everything that is slimy in the world. Trainspotting 2 is anything if not nostalgic. A high on self, dopamine induced trip with razor stark direction and tripping score, Danny Boyle brings his trademark eclectic sense of madness for a much awaited sequel that might not be as smart as it’s predecessor but carries enough dynamite to blow roof over a few Catholic heads.

★★★½