Director Michael Winterbottom’s 2010 feature The Trip is a curious creature. Stitched together from slices of the eponymous BBC series, the film follows comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as they tour the north of England, sampling the region’s finest restaurants for a British weekly. The Coogan and Brydon on display are fictionalized, but the cuisine is genuine. The resulting film is part scripted mockumentary, part food-porn travelogue, and part improvisational comic showcase.
The principals have returned with a new series and spinoff feature, The Trip to Italy, in which Coogan and Brydon attempt to replicate the Continental travels once undertaken by young British gentlemen of means. Of course, the actors are pushing 50, and The Trip to Italy is accordingly concerned with matters of aging, mortality, and legacies. While feasting on handcrafted ravioli and savoring the dazzling landscapes, the men ruminate on their successes and failures. The words of the Romantic poets snake through the film, and Brydon in particular is keen to follow in the footsteps of Lord Byron’s Italian exile.
Such seriousness is leavened with self-awareness at the whole endeavor’s glum, pretentious absurdity. As in the first film, The Trip to Italy’s most appealing aspect is the simple, low-key pleasure of watching Coogan and Brydon riff on various topics and generally take the piss out of one another. The endless celebrity impressions are a highlight, and Coogan’s expressions of contemptuous confusion at some of Brydon’s bits are practically worth the price of admission. The film’s appeal is ultimately fairly narrow. Viewers disinclined towards the pair’s off-handed, insecure, and self-absorbed comedy will likely find this Trip as interminable as the original. However, if the prospect of dueling Michael Caine imitations amid picture postcard scenery sounds charming, the film will likely prove to be an unassuming summer diversion.
The Trip to Italy opens Friday, August 29 at Plaza Frontenac Cinema (1701 S. Lindbergh, 314-994-3733).
