21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist

T2 Trainspotting

Twenty years after it first hooked moviegoers, Trainspotting seems dated. I don’t mean that in a pejorative way; the 1996 cult favorite remains as stylish, energetic, and seductive as ever. Rather, like a handful of other classics (Giant and Network come to mind), it belongs so completely to its era that removing it feels like an act of theft. It’s as much an artifact as a piece of entertainment.

I suspect the same will be true of its sequel. As in real life, 20 years have passed in the world of Trainspotting. Last time we saw Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), he kicked his heroin habit and stole £16,000 from his friends. T2 Trainspotting brings him back to his hometown of Edinburgh, now as a 46-year-old exercise nut who’s going through a divorce and on the verge of being fired from his midlevel finance job. Naturally, he reunites with his friends, none of who are especially glad to see him, and hijinks ensue.

Nostalgia flows freely in the form of recycled images, lines, and song cues. Yet, the film never permits the audience to take pleasure in it, or indulge in the illusion that they can relive the good old days. Unmistakable signs of time’s passage are everywhere, from the ramshackle buildings that litter the cityscape to the actors’ weathered faces. When Mark recites an updated version of his famous “choose life” speech, gone is the devil-may-care defiance that made the original so endearing. Instead, it conveys seething bitterness — not at how the world has changed, but at how the world hasn’t changed. This, T2 observes, is the essential hypocrisy of modern civilization: our obsession with progress and new things is really just a desire to find different, more efficient ways to stay the same.

Of all the entries on this list, T2 is the one that feels most deliberately and specifically tailored for 2017. With no overt references and startling clarity for a movie about middle-aged junkies, it presents a snapshot of Europe in the age of Brexit that, as ScreenCrush critic Matt Singer says, ought to be put in a time capsule. Stateside, it barely caused a blip (no doubt, people dismissed it as another unnecessary sequel), which is oddly fitting. No one likes looking in the mirror.