Television

The Trip (Director: Michael Winterbottom): Hastily edited down from its ori­ginal form as a six-episode tele­vi­sion series made for the BBC, Michael Winterbottom’s latest col­lab­or­a­tion with Coogan and Brydon is a great show­case for their impro­visa­tional talent, but the plot feels tacked on and is ulti­mately unnecessary.

Last at TIFF together in 2005 with Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, the trio clearly love working together. Winterbottom admitted that essen­tially all of the dia­logue was impro­vised. He had been looking for a way to work together with friends Coogan and Brydon and came up with the idea of them having a series of lunches together. So he cast Coogan as “Steve Coogan,” a slightly out­sized ver­sion of him­self who receives a magazine assign­ment to con­duct a culinary tour of the north of England, writing about his res­taurant exper­i­ences as he goes. When his American girl­friend sud­denly returns to the US for work and their rela­tion­ship goes on hiatus, he turns to Brydon to accom­pany him. Rob Brydon, whose career has never reached the starry heights of Coogan’s, has a cosy domestic life with his wife and new baby, and seems con­tent with his status as a mid-level celebrity. Coogan, who exper­i­enced early fame as TV chat host Alan Partridge, has been chasing the high of that suc­cess ever since. So as we get lovely shots of the coun­tryside, and the pair are acco­mod­ated in swanky inns, Coogan paces the moors trying to find a cell­phone signal so he can call his absent girl­friend or one of his agents. Brydon, mean­while, uses the hotel phone to crack wise and talk dirty with his beloved wife.

These bits are amusing, but Coogan and Brydon have been playing these ver­sions of them­selves as far back as 2002’s TV movie Cruise of the Gods, so it kind of gets tire­some quickly. Yes, yes, Coogan is more famous and lives a jet-set life. Brydon has everyman charm. The real enjoy­ment of The Trip is watching the two play off of each other during their con­ver­sa­tions. Their attempts to one-up each other are hys­ter­ical, espe­cially when it comes to doing impres­sions of everyone from Michael Caine to Woody Allen. And the subtle dynamics between them per­fectly cap­ture the uncer­tain­ties of male friend­ships, from the fear of being seen as a gay couple to under­es­tim­ating the value of each other’s friend­ship. Almost every moment between them is hil­arious, which in the end shows how strong their bond is, even when they’re uncom­fort­able sharing their feel­ings about each other.

All of which makes the plot even more super­fluous. Numerous shots of gourmet food and kit­chens and cooking add prac­tic­ally nothing to the film. The beau­tiful scenery of Yorkshire and the Lake District, while giving the film visual appeal on the big screen, con­tribute very little to the essence of the film. The ending, which con­sists of nothing more than cut­ting between Brydon’s domestic bliss and Coogan’s posh but empty life­style, was melo­drama piled on thick. There really was no need to attempt to make this any­thing other than the superb buddy comedy at its heart. The rest feels arti­fi­cially tacked on and is ulti­mately distracting.

Here is the Q&A with dir­ector Michael Winterbottom and stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon from after the screening.

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Duration: 17:31

(7/10)

Tagged as: #tiff10, uk

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