REVIEW: The Trip

British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play fictionalised versions of themselves undertaking a road trip around the UK, ostensibly working as restaurant critics but mainly winding each other up. Opens nationwide on Thursday, click for movie times and trailer.

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If you’ve already seen the 6-part BBC series version of The Trip, there’s probably no real need to go out of your way to watch this condensed theatrical cut. It isn’t a terrible hatchet job per se – in fact, it’s pieced together well enough that unless you’re an eagle-eyed super fan who’s able to detect the minutest of plot differences, you won’t notice what’s exactly missing narratively. But the series’ effectiveness was partly due to its meandering quality and the melancholy mood that settled in even as we’re watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon hilariously one-up each other with their impressions of fellow actors.

The underlying ruefulness, enhanced by Michael Nyman’s plaintive score, made it much more than a sitcom-y vanity project, and the episodic nature of television emphasised the element of time passing which was crucial to the characters’ growing distance from their loved ones. The film is slightly missing this, and the impersonations can also get a little trying when taken in such quick succession.

That said, if you haven’t got 180 minutes to sit through the series, then this 107-minute cut is more than an agreeable alternative. The relaxed, semi-improvised rapport between them, often open to gentle ribbing, bickering and competitiveness, remains sharp and drolly funny, while the array of mouth-watering culinary delights and stunning shots of the Northern English countryside will make you wish the film came with a travel package of the exact same trip they took.

• Watch trailer for The Trip
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