The Trip (2011)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 94
Fresh: 84 | Rotten: 10
Amiable, funny and sometimes insightful, The Trip works as both a showcase for the enduring chemistry between stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and an unexpected perusal of men entering mid-life crises.
Average Rating: 8/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 1
Amiable, funny and sometimes insightful, The Trip works as both a showcase for the enduring chemistry between stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and an unexpected perusal of men entering mid-life crises.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
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Movie Info
Playing loose versions of themselves, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reprise their hilariously fictionalized roles from Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story and reunite with acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom for an acerbically witty, largely improvised ride through the English countryside. Tapped by The Observer to review fine restaurants throughout the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, Steve finds himself without a traveling companion after his girlfriend decides not to go at the last
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Cast
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Steve Coogan
Steve -
Margo Stilley
Mischa -
Rob Brydon
Rob
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All Critics (94) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (85) | Rotten (10) | DVD (1)
The Trip is not about food; it's about friendship, one that will give you plenty to laugh - and think - about.
Top CriticThe Trip is a comedy about two guys going to fancy restaurants in the English countryside. Sounds hilarious, huh? Well, it actually is.
Much more than an appetizer, if not quite a main course, it definitely goes down a treat.
Think The Odd Couple with sartorial style and more bickering. Add hints of truisms about middle age, sex, family, mortality and the limits of friendship and The Trip reveals itself to be more than it initially appears.
The joy of this small, unimportant contest is weirdly addictive; you come out of the film as if from a concert, playing the music of false voices in your head.
The film is a wickedly funny joy ride that offers keen, unflatteringly honest insights on fame, midlife crises and the rivalrous nature of male friendship.
Part road-movie, part restaurant-review, 100% hilarious.
Droll, improvising, overlong but awfully funny.
Deconstructing comedy, as comedy
Bleakly rolling moors and stiff-chinned restaurants bring a chilly tone to this austere, investigative, self-reflexive, and yet somehow rollicking comedy...
Not big on plot or story so there are slow patches, but the interaction of Brydon and Coogan makes this more worthwhile, if less informative, than any number of food-travel shows.
I expected 'The Trip' to be funny, but I didn't expect it to be one of the year's most beautiful films, thanks to cinematographer Ben Smithard's stunning landscape shots -- it's like the 'Days of Heaven' of Brit impressionist movies
A funny and intelligent buddy movie about two men with similar talents but different personalities, traipsing across fog-shrouded northern England on a wild-goose chase.
Has some funny moments when the boys engage in one-upmanship and serve up their droll Brit humor.
There is no earthly reason why Michael Winterbottom's The Trip should work, and several reasons why it shouldn't. Remarkably, it does work.
Just watching them volley impressions at each other for a couple of hours would make for a great time at the movies. But Winterbottom and his actors manage to underlay a melancholy note beneath the merriment, making "The Trip" even more satisfying.
Somehow the two keep from killing each other - or even griping all that much - long enough to make it through a hefty chunk of pleasing celluloid.
At nearly two hours, the film feels endless.
Slightly broken by its trip from series to feature... [it's] not that The Trip no good, but that The Trip should be so much better.
Terrific stuff.
If the idea of going on a minibreak with Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom sounds like your cup of crazy, then run, don't walk, to see The Trip.
So, this is new: a frequently hilarious comedy that is also totally satisfying on an emotional level. A satire of fame that is never mean-spirited, and isn't filled with obnoxious jokes aimed only at insiders.
Fuelled by some inspired and very funny improvisations - their duelling Michael Caine impersonations are a scream - the film gradually settles into a meditation on mid-life malaise.
Rejoice, Coogan and Brydon fans.
Audience Reviews for The Trip
Super Reviewer
The premise is that Coogan is between jobs, wanting to make big, brilliant American movies, but being offered only TV series designed for washed up stars. Newly on a break from his much younger girlfriend, Coogan sets off to write a magazine article about the restaurants in England's northlands, and in a pinch to find a travel companion, calls old friend and Tristram Shandy co-star Rob Brydon. The men's friendship strains, as does Coogan's personal life and career, as they make their way from place to place, really doing little more than carrying on a conversation that ranges through all emotions. Compelling viewing, and most notable, perhaps, for the moment when Steve Coogan says he wants to work with auteurs; he and Winterbottom are already doing it.
Super Reviewer
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- Steve: Don't you find it exhausting running around, chasing girls?
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- Steve: Gentlemen to bed, for tomorrow we leave at 9:30!
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- Steve: Was there a lot of alcohol in your garden as a child? I'm sorry, Rob.
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- Steve: I don't chase them.
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- Steve: I've, uh, asked other people but they're all too busy, so you know, do you wanna come?
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This then brings into question the credibility of the entire enterprise, but if you can get past the cinematic slight of hand, you end up with some very witty dialog and laugh out loud funny repartee (usually given in celebrity voices as both leads, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are gifted mimics).
But as these 40 something lads go joking their way through northern England, there is a melancholy undertow that is slowly revealed - making the coda of the film quite stirring and poignant. In the end you can reflect back on these two characters and how petty jealousy seems to ride shotgun in the Land Rover they use to get from one idyllic village to the next - and truly wonder if that jealousy is indeed petty or if Coogan's character realizes where he is in life and that all his victories thus far pale when compared to the solid family relationship of Brydon, who has what Coogan only subliminally acknowledges as his desire - to have the true love and support of a woman (even though he may be emotionally incapable of handling such a relationship). His return to an empty flat perfectly symbolizes the emptiness of his life at this juncture.
Pretty deep stuff for a "comedy" that on the surface is really about.... Well nothing much - and that's the beauty of it - revelation through the mundane. There is a scene towards the end of the film where Coogan and Byrdon visit Coogan's parents on the way back to London - when Dad asks which route Coogan is going to take, he then, upon hearing the route, shakes his head and says "that way will never do - there's too much in the way of roadblocks - better to retrace your path" - a metaphor for Coogan's life if ever there was one.