B+Directed by Michael Winterbottom Starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Part food porn travelogue, part Grumpy Middle-Aged Men, The Trip is wholly delightful. Michael Winterbottom’s mockumentary finds actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon traipsing through northern England’s B&B’s and restaurants, playing slightly elevated versions of themselves as the former reckons with his lack of romantic stability and the latter butts up against the safe predictability of his married existence. Both share a lived-in rapport that expresses itself in one-upsmanship, particularly around the various impressions of actors that they use to thrust and parry at each other. Both are unqualified to be professionally mimicking someone like Anthony Bourdain (Coogan says the tomato soup tastes like tomatoes), but they are supremely qualified to entertain the viewer with their very funny back and forth.
Though the film was probably improvised to near-total degree, both stick to a compelling characterization of themselves. Brydon whips out his impressions as a way to try and amuse his friend but also as a needy method of filling awkward pauses, while Coogan masks his deep insecurities with arcane knowledge and a fed-up tone. Coogan’s had greater success in films, but that’s not even something Brydon, a happy working actor, is going after. Both represent pictures of professional masculinity that are potentially stifling if either allowed them to be, and one is more willing that the other. Despite working with Hollywood A-listers, Coogan is the one who’s jealous of Brydon, practicing his impressions when he’s by himself and relentlessly trying to top him. The film risks crossing into awkwardness, as there are small flashes of heat between them, but the feeling is that they’ve both been around each other for so long, that they know when it’s time to back off and move on to the next topic of conversation, whether that conversation is about the particulars of cliff formation or dueling Braveheart speeches.
In what is only a series of conversations of varying degrees of frivolity, Winterbottom keeps the film moving. Amidst the banter is the blossoming and withering of Coogan’s personal and professional life, enough of a throughline to the bare minimum of plot to the proceedings. It’s hardly needed, as The Trip never lags or gets tiresome, keeping up its fly-on-the-wall feel for its entire runtime. Adapted from a TV series and edited into feature length, The Trip barely qualifies as a film but manages to be as entertaining as another trilogy that began at the same time, the X-Men prequel series. For a fraction of the cost, Winterbottom transports the viewer an equal or greater amount, and throws in an endlessly funny battle of the Michael Caine impressions. B+
In what is only a series of conversations of varying degrees of frivolity, Winterbottom keeps the film moving. Amidst the banter is the blossoming and withering of Coogan’s personal and professional life, enough of a throughline to the bare minimum of plot to the proceedings. It’s hardly needed, as The Trip never lags or gets tiresome, keeping up its fly-on-the-wall feel for its entire runtime. Adapted from a TV series and edited into feature length, The Trip barely qualifies as a film but manages to be as entertaining as another trilogy that began at the same time, the X-Men prequel series. For a fraction of the cost, Winterbottom transports the viewer an equal or greater amount, and throws in an endlessly funny battle of the Michael Caine impressions. B+
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