After 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie.After 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie.After 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie.
- Awards
- 6 wins & 8 nominations
- Veronika
- (as Anjela Nedyalkova)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaJonny Lee Miller offered to shave his head to look older, but Danny Boyle insisted that Sick Boy retain his iconic blond hair.
- GoofsWhen Renton meets Simon in his pub he is playing snooker on his own. In the first shot there are only red balls and a black ball . In the next shot a yellow ball appears on the table.
- Quotes
Veronika: What's 'Choose life'?
Renton: What?
Veronika: 'Choose life'. Simon says it sometimes. He says "Choose life, Veronika!"
Renton: 'Choose life'. 'Choose life' was a well meaning slogan from a 1980's anti-drug campaign and we used to add things to it, so I might say for example, choose... designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you've never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don't look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank 'til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten things you never knew about celebrities who've had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it's better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody's fucking kitchen. Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you'd done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love, then as they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them until you can see that one day in the future, piece by piece, they will all be gone and there'll be nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, Veronika. Choose life.
- Crazy creditsThe initial final credits appear over modified scenes of tower blocks and other buildings being demolished. Once the cast credits appear, the background changes to amorphous, swirling, mainly black/ white/ grey shapes.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Film '72: Episode #45.10 (2016)
- SoundtracksShotgun Mouthwash
Performed by High Contrast
Written by Lincoln Jordan Barrett
Courtesy of 3 Beat Productions Ltd / All Around The World
Under license from Universal Music Operations Ltd
Published by 3Beat Music Limited
Administered By Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd
I thought this would be a negative, but actually this is what the film does, but it is a strength not a weakness. The film reconnects with the characters, who are all in their different places, some having moved more than others. Regardless though, they are all looking back. Some of them look back with fondness when their violence was at its peak, others feel regret for what little they have to show for life - some putting that on themselves, others putting it into blame on others for closing off options. This sense of hitting a certain age and looking back is universal I think, and it works well here. The base plot is not as good, but this element of nostalgia (fond and regretful) mixes across the film well and carries it through.
It also allows the film to do what it does in terms of style. It references the original film a lot, but thanks to this theme, it doesn't feel like it is trying to replicate it or ride on its coattails, but rather it is a touchpoint for the characters, the cast, the crew, and the viewer. Doing this strengthens that theme. Of course, it also repeats the energy of the original film, with the director/cinematographer very much pushing the style and design. This doesn't work quite as well when sometimes there is not quite the substance to carry it off.
How it would work for younger viewers, or those who have never seen the first film, I don't know. But for me it had the style and energy it needed to keep it all moving, but what worked most was that it took that feeling of a backwards looking film, and made that a strength that ran through the 4th wall from the characters out to the production and to the viewer. It is not a match for the original film but it works very well as a companion piece.
- bob the moo
- Jun 4, 2018
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Trainspotting 2
- Filming locations
- Sofia, Bulgaria(final sequence with Veronika at train station)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $18,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,402,004
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $170,575
- Mar 19, 2017
- Gross worldwide
- $41,681,746
- Runtime1 hour 57 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1