Renton Still Running to Nowhere
The film opens on imagery which is absolutely sublime in its perfection. Mark Renton, now middle-aged, in a fitness club running on a treadmill having a heart attack which flings him backward and onto the floor. The sublimity of this image is the way it draws a parallel with the original movie which opened with a young Renton running down the sidewalk and nearly—nearly—knocked onto the street, but having avoided that fate, heading out of frame laughing maniacally. Renton is older, but still running and still going nowhere and still being just lucky enough to avoid tragedy, though the margin is becoming slimmer.
Simon Being Sick Boy
Sick Boy is now Simon. That’s what everybody calls him. Except Diane and she’s been out of the picture longer than Renton. Sick Boy is Simon. Except that Simon still dyes his hair. It is background imagery; the focus is on Mark in the foreground, but there in the background is middle-aged Simon still dying his hair that crazy Police-circa-’79 blonde. Like so much of the memorable imagery in the film, it serves the purpose of reminding viewers that these may be the same characters, but they are not the same people they used to be, so stop complaining that the movie is a sequel and not a remake.
Begbie’s Problem
After escaping from prison and returning home, every time Francis Begbie gets into bed for a round of sex with his wife, he experiences erectile dysfunction. Eventually, he seeks the help of Viagra (not, it should be noted, with a valid prescription.) Here is yet another visual exclamation point (or, ironically, the lack of such) to instill in the mind of the audience that this is not a story about the young men from the first point, but rather about the middle-aged men they have become. The movie insistently calls upon the audience to remember how they have changed since the mid-1990’s and how the world itself has changed since the mid-1990’s. Were this film not a sequel with characters one is already familiar with, none of these three examples of imagery would be significant. But they are.
The Pub Scene: Who Are These Guys?
The extended set piece in which Mark and Simon steal ATM cards and forced to sing a Protestant loyalty song to some critics seems to be so out of place as to stick out like a sore thumb. (In fact, it is entirely coherent to the logic of the plot.) Its real value, however, is explicitly stated at the beginning as the two prepared to carry out their plan. Renton explains that the patrons who are about to be victimized yet again may have been “abandoned by their political class, but at least they have a sense of identity.” Over the course of the sequence, the imagery of Renton and Sick Boy stealing the cards is a portrait of who they used to be and the transition of them into Protestants glorifying the genocide of Catholics is a portrait of who never were. Which leaves the unanswered question hanging in the air: just who are these guys? Where is their sense of identity?
