The Trip

Edited down from a six-episode BBC series, Michael Winterbottom's The Trip generates frequent laughs, but doesn't quite cohere as a feature film. That's no fault of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, the immensely talented and appealing stars, who play themselves (as they did in Winterbottom's more ambitious Tristram Shandy), wittily improvising their dialogue. Coogan has been assigned by The Observer to review several inns in the picturesque north of England. His American girlfriend, Mischa (Margo Stilley of Winterbottom's 9 Songs), backs out of the trip, so he enlists Brydon instead. While Brydon is a devoted family man, Coogan, though pining for Mischa, is a relentless womanizer. The Trip falls into a pattern early on that soon begins to feel redundant—Coogan and Brydon make small talk in the car as they traverse gorgeous scenery; they stop to eat; we see their mouth-watering meals being prepared; they bicker and try to show each other up, and then they hit the road again. While their competitiveness and their willingness to poke fun at their public personae are consistently amusing, the episodic movie never really goes anywhere. It just ambles along amiably.