The Trip

This show makes me cry whenever i revisit it, i also find it incredibly funny, good show.

One of the TV highlights of 2010. Coogan and Brydon are superb, the oddest of couples as they bicker about their careers and try to outdo each other with impressions ranging from Al Pacino ('whatta ya got?') to Alan Bennett ('Peter and Dudley, Dudley and Peter'). It's beautifully shot with some stunning locations and also manages the tricky feat of segueing from dark comedy to oddly touching drama and back again. It could so easily have been self-indulgent tripe, and there are admittedly times when you want to reach into the screen and punch the preening, self-obsessed Coogan, but The Trip manages to walk that finest of lines, delivering a love song to the north and a funny, thoughtful meditation on fame and the ageing process. Here's hoping for a second series.

One of the things I did enjoy about 2005's Cock & Bull Story was the relationship between Coogan and Brydon in terms of how funny their discussions were but also how informed by their own insecurities and jealousies they were. It wasn't the whole of the film of course but it was a small part of it that worked well and I was definitely interested to see that idea and that relationship explored a bit more in The Trip. Although a shorter film version exists somewhere, in the UK I saw it as the six-part sitcom on BBC2 that gained near universal praise from critics but at the same time seemed to be actively disliked by the majority of the people who casually checked it out on TV one evening. Likewise on the internet forums opinion appears to equally polarised with people thinking it brilliant or dismissing it as self-indulgent tosh. In a way I sort of see where both sides are coming from.

On one hand the potential here is to really make a smart and clever post-modern study of "fame" and success using fictionalised versions of these two men, but then on the flip side much of each episode appears to be them having the same sort of conversations driven by impressions delivered mostly by Brydon while Coogan goes increasingly impatient with him. For me both of these things are equally true but they both end up working against each other and the material doesn't even seem to be strong enough or tight enough to be able to deliver on the idea and realise the potential. Of course it is mostly improvised around an idea and this does seem to help the comedy as their messy conversations produces some good laughs, but it means that the bitterness, the awkwardness, the slight air of failure and resentment doesn't even go deeper than specific scenes on which it is painted. What I was looking for was that these aspects would be "in" the characters and always part of them in more of a way that it was – irritation and impatience during a specific conversation is not quite the same as this and it isn't really countered by making sure we end each episode with Coogan silently considering his navel in one way or another.

I didn't hate it like some did but I certainly didn't love it like others did either. The potential is there and the two actors certainly seem talented enough but it does feel like they could have done with a much tighter leash in terms of being allowed to improvise and needed clever scripted material and direction to make sure the potential in the idea came through. It is an interesting and sporadically very funny failure though – but it is ultimately a failure as the potential never comes through in real meaning or substance and the comedy is a bit too repetitive after a few episodes to be classic.

What we've really got is two series. One is the comedy of "Steve Coogan" and "Rob Brydon" exchanging barbs and doing impressions and making witty observations. These parts generally occur over the six meals they share, and I really enjoyed them. Some of their banter is hilarious... I had already seen the Michael Caine routine several times on YouTube and yet I still laughed at it. The other film involves the contrast between these people/characters: Steve, trying to bolster his acting career and struggling with a relationship that's starting to crack, and Rob the less successful but content family man. And I really enjoyed this part as well. Rob's calls home to his wife are amusing but also quite touching. Steve's existential midlife crisis is engaging and insightful as well. The two halves of the film do bleed into each other a bit, but I genuinely appreciated the separation between them. Winterbottom knows that it's okay to just let these two guys play off each other with their natural comedic chemistry and not worry about whether or not it's pushing the "plot" forward. The photography is mostly functional, concentrating on the personalities, but quite lovely when capturing all that gorgeous English countryside. While the film isn't as post-modern as the previous collaborations (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE and TRISTRAM SHANDY, both of which seem to get minor callbacks in the first episode, though it may be merely coincidence) it still maintains an unconventionality.

One part Gourmet Orgy, one part North of England Postcard, one part Buddy Road Picture, and one part Indulgent Vanity Piece, The Trip serves up thoroughly sating entertainment. While on a one week sojourn through the picturesque countryside to review haute cuisine for a Sunday newspaper, Steve Coogan's character - a rather melancholic version of himself - struggles to salvage a failing relationship with his distant American actress girlfriend over awkward, difficult cell phone calls. It's a clever ploy that personifies Steve's escaping opportunities to land a substantial role in a major Hollywood production. His spirit is so crushed by his fractured romance, or by his unfulfilled professional ambitions, or by both - you decide! - that it casts a shadow over his days' adventures.

Though he indulges his libido at will with a string of attractive young ladies along the way, he still implores us to empathize with his misery. It is hard to commiserate with a guy who's meanwhile indulging, at every meal, in spectacularly sumptuous delicacies and exquisite vintages, all the while engaged in wonderfully hysterical banter with a fellow comedic master, Rob Brydon, who is sarcastically presented as just a casual work acquaintance. Steve's spot on executions of Michael Caine, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, Billy Connolly, and even Woody Allen are nearly matched by Rob, whose uncanny Hugh Grant he employs in his ridiculous nightly phone sex calls to his wife back home. Rob seems unaware of just how awful is his Al Pacino, which he isn't shy to use. Even Rob's lesser talents, especially his trademark Small Man in a Box, are very entertaining, at least in as much as they severely irritate Steve, who secretly envies the amusing skill.

The conceit that drives the six episode series is that we are in fact encouraged to despise Steve to some degree for his prideful self obsession, all-the-while vicariously reveling in the bacchanalian indulgences. Rob's genial, boyish charm is just as likely to provoke as it is to dampen a condescending, scolding retort from Steve. Rob, it seems, is content to have such a knowledgeable, if critical, audience for his theatrics. The heavy moods, however, are overplayed a bit, prodded by Mr. Coogan's genuine(?) desire to be recognized as an artist. Apparently true comedians are not satisfied with their rare talent for making people laugh. It's a dilemma similar to that explored by Ricky Gervais in Extras series 2, where Ricky's character, Andy, is often despondent over his stalled career, trapped in a low brow sitcom, mechanically repeating a tedious, tiresome catch phrase. The Trip manages to avoid Alan Partridge's signature "Aha!" for all but a few utterances where it's used to great effect. The Trip also shares considerable psychic terrain with the 2004 film Sideways with Paul Giamatti as a morose failed writer and Thomas Haden Church as a better adjusted minor TV star on a cross country wine tasting excursion. The Trip plays it much less dramatically, more subtly.

As brilliant as this hybrid amalgam is, I left off one half a star for it's less-than-funny, even distracting, self fascinated pathos. Steve's hubris is initially compelling but it eventually grew just a bit tiresome. In all fairness watching the six episodes straight through in one sitting may have contributed to this impression. Even so, that leaves nine and one half gleaming stars of supremely fulfilling rich humor and stunning visual treats, plus a few savory historical morsels.