On the surface, a movie in which two film stars road-trip across the north of England touring the region’s fine-dining establishments portends a new precedent for cine-narcissism, but The Trip goes down easy, mainly because its two leads have such a fluid rapport. Coogan stars as a version of himself, an actor assigned to write a dining piece for the Observer ; with his girlfriend (Stilley) in self-imposed exile in America, he invites his colleague “Rob Brydon” (Brydon, a collaborator on Tristram Shandy), who welcomes the opportunity for a brief respite from family. Sampling different varieties of scallop and engaging in competitive Michael Caine impressions, the two men slowly emerge as Settled and Unsettled, with Brydon’s assuredness acting as a scalpel that lacerates Coogan’s thin skin.
The protean Winterbottom often gets credit just for working in different genres, but he rarely seems totally invested, and here, he can’t quite sustain the invention of the film’s first 90 minutes. (It was edited down from a six-episode BBC series, so perhaps it’s simply better in short bursts.) Still, the late switch to pathos—essentially, an attempt to turn The Trip into Old Joy 2—feels earned, and Brydon and Coogan are a constant delight. If the movie really was partially improvised, as reported, then the line between acting and life has seldom seemed so thin.
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