The Trip: Steve Coogan on a Quest to Eat

Phil Fisk/IFC Films

Who's the better Roger Moore? Coogan (left) or Brydon?

Details

Opens at Harvard Exit, Fri., June 17. Not rated. 107 minutes.

Related Content

• SIFF for the Food-Minded Set: The Trip
  May 23, 2011
• SIFF Week 1: Picks & Pans
  May 18, 2011
• Lays These Days
  April 4, 2012
• Kurt Cobain's Estranged Daughter Frances Bean Cobain Claims Courtney Love Killed Her Pets
  February 2, 2012
• Courtney Love, Twisted Firestarter, Evicted from $27K-per-Month NYC Apartment
  December 15, 2011

More About

• Steve Coogan
• Rob Brydon
• Michael Winterbottom
• Movie Stars
• Celebrity News

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Director Michael Winterbottom had so much fun making the 2005 Tristram Shandy with comic stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon that he signed up to do a recent TV series with them. Essentially, Coogan—a much bigger name in the UK, thanks to his Alan Partridge character—would drive around the North Countries, with Brydon as his wingman, and write about food. Or, here, talk about food. Or, mainly, talk about their respective careers (why can't Steve get the big roles he thinks he deserves in Hollywood?), romantic misfortunes, the humiliations of aging, and whatever else comes to mind. Their priceless improvisatory banter is framed, fake-documentary style, by their public images: Brydon and Coogan are playing versions of themselves, with movie Rob the contented family man whose small-screen success has recently earned him an iPhone app. Lonely, philandering movie Steve is haunted by his tabloid past with strippers, drugs, and even Courtney Love. He's constantly one-upping Rob, resulting in hilarious dueling impersonations of Michael Caine ("It's all from the nose!") and Roger Moore. The humor and put-downs during this culinary road trip are very British, very specifically British, and not every reference will land on American ears. Also, because the movie is stitched together from several TV episodes, there's a lot of repetition. If you love Rob's first Al Pacino impression, you may not laugh so much at his fourth. Still, it's the funniest film I saw at SIFF, one that even turns ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All" into a rueful anthem of middle age.