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I will say this was one of the more odd movie experiences I’ve had. First off, it isn’t really a movie, per se. The Trip is a British television show that was edited down from 172 minutes to 107 minutes and released in the US as a film. And the theater in which I viewed it had a total of 25 seats (I counted) and the film was actually on a Blu-Ray disc projected onto a smallish screen. The attendant started the film, then hung out for a few minutes to see if we needed the volume adjusted. I go see a lot of movies – I mean, a lot – and this was a first for me. Oh, what’s it about? Patience, grasshopper.
In The Trip, film and television comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play a version of themselves, ala Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull story, off an a trip across the English countryside to review gourmet restaurants for The Observer. Well, it’s Coogan’s gig, but when he and his American girlfriend, Mischa, decide to take a break, he enlists Brydon to come along. You know, after calling a bunch of other people, first.
What ensues is the subdued, quiet hilarity of truly genius British comedy. Coogan and Brydon are immensely funny men, and they have the playful antagonism that only comes from people who have worked together many times over the years. The show, er, movie, is largely improvised, which should come as no surprise, and you’re never quite sure if these two man are great mates or really fucking hate each other. As far as the character versions of themselves, it probably falls somewhere in the middle.
As anyone who has enough fingers to type search criteria into You Tube knows, a huge part of The Trip is the boys trying to out-funny each other, generally in terms of impressions. This is true, in a sense, but when viewing the full show it becomes clear that these bouts come about because Brydon is physically incapable of NOT doing impression, which exasperates Coogan to the point of doing his own impressions just to irritate him.
As far as Coogan’s character, I was pleasantly surprised to see him playing a pretty dark version of himself. He’s not terrible, but he’s not terribly pleasant, either. He drinks, smokes pot, is a chronic womanizer while being jealous of every little thing his girlfriend is doing in America, and there are heavy insinuations of a drug past for him. The most poignant moment in the film is when Coogan is staring at himself in a mirror, and struggling to do the “small man in a box” bit for which Brydon is well-known.
The countryside the boys travel is breathtaking, and the restaurants they attend range from looking pretty sweet to being pretentious nonsense factories. While there are copious scenes of the food being cooked, the actual reviewing of the eateries is basically nonexistent. Maybe there is more of that in the full show, I couldn’t say. But that’s not really the point. The point is to showcase the comedy of Coogan of Brydon, which is done especially to great effect when the two are driving along and improvising a full-costume scene of the night before a battle, ala Braveheart, in a most realistic sense. They wonder why battles are always awoken for at daybreak, and haggle over what time to wake up, and when to have breakfast. I was little crying, and my face was aching, it was so funny.
Altogether, the movie version is a success. There is not music, no action sequences, no special effects. Just two men driving in a car, eating at restaurants, and staying in hotel rooms, improvising their lines. Somewhere in the middle of this springs hilarity and poignancy, in equal measures. If you don’t love this movie, or show, or in whatever form you view it, you truly suck.
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