Where were you in 1996? Bursting with enthusiasm for your nascent career? Thrilling at the bright lights of the big city? Tearing up any dancefloor, festival field and gig moshpit you stumbled across? Whatever you were doing, you can’t fail to have clocked the vast cultural impact of Trainspotting. Danny Boyle’s iconic Brit flick of that year introduced a motley Edinburgh crew of strangely lovable rogues, druggies and psychopaths, led by Ewan McGregor as skinny jean-ed heroin addict, Renton.
Twenty-one (yes, I KNOW) years on, and the original cast and director are back with T2 Trainspotting, which is loosely based on author Irvine Welsh’s 2002 sequel Porno. It opens at cinemas nationwide on Friday – here you go, check out the trailer:
Honestly, I can’t wait to grab a bunch of my rowdiest mates and head to the flicks. Actually, the very thought of it is making me a bit *sniff*, you know, misty-eyed with nostalgia. In the two decades since the original, I’m guessing almost all of us have indeed chosen life, chosen a job, chosen a career, chosen a family…. or at least some of the above.
Which means this time round we won’t be able to float off to the cinema when it suits us – plans must be made, babysitters will need booking. We won’t be able to stay up all night afterwards drinking whiskey and discussing the plot. And we won’t Blu-Tack up the movie poster in our bedrooms.
But, you know what, I’m OK with that. There’s a line in T2 where Sick Boy says: “Nostalgia, that’s why you’re here. You’re a tourist in your own youth.” And frick me, isn’t that the truth?! I’m looking forward to spending a couple of hours reminiscing about how things used to be, while reminding myself that the present ain’t so bad, either. And, of course, pondering where Jonny Lee Miller’s hair went and whether Ewan McGregor has still got it. Um, yep, OK, pondered that one – yes he has!
‘T2 Trainspotting’ opens on general release this Friday.