Watching “The Trip” is like listening to an inside joke of which you are not a part. You’re not entirely sure what it means, but you’re charmed by it nonetheless.
Actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play exaggerated versions of themselves in this wry, elegant and devilishly enchanting road trip comedy. Together with director Michael Winterbottom (“The Killer Inside Me,” “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”), they find plenty of pathos beneath the breezy comic surface, and the film emerges as an intimate, poignant and biting look at male insecurity.
Wanting to impress his American girlfriend and hardcore foodie Mischa (Margo Stilley), Coogan accepts an assignment from the British newspaper The Observer to go on a restaurant tour of northern England for a column in its monthly food magazine. However, Mischa puts their relationship on hold, forcing Coogan to invite his only available friend, Brydon.
Coogan can’t stand Brydon, but I, along with everyone else in the film, found him quite funny and charismatic, which is undoubtedly why Coogan hates him.
The film finds these men constantly competing, whether in dining choices or impressions of Michael Caine (the film’s most memorable comedy set-piece). Coogan and Brydon make their insecurities not only amusing, but also tangible and poignant. As the men desperately try to top each other, you can feel the weight of their careers and reputations pressing down on them. Their melancholy daze and self-imposed pressure to succeed is underscored by the somber elegance of Winterbottom’s aesthetic. Wide shots of the sparse, ever-overcast English countryside convey the men's angst and alienation from each other.
The career-oriented tension between the characters is what attracted me the most and truly earned my sympathies. I could relate to it, as I'm sure many people can, because, like Coogan and Brydon, we tend to carry our professions, or professional aspirations, like an albatross around our necks. We take our work everywhere with us and constantly try to prove our worth to people both in and outside our professional fields. At the same time, we are just big kids, and Coogan and Brydon share that arrested development (a recurring theme in many Judd Apatow comedies of late and buddy movies in general).
Although I related to these aspects of the film, I was an outsider for the most part. Oddly enough, though, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the film.
Although I wasn’t familiar with Brydon and only knew Coogan from "Hamlet 2" and "Tropic Thunder," I still took delight in the film’s exploration of their places in the British comedy scene, even if it only consisted of overheard rumblings.
I loved being a fly on the wall in the world of this film. Coogan and Brydon are excellent company with which to tag along.
If you want to experience even more of their witty banter, check out the BBC sitcom series upon which the film is based.