The Trip

Probably my favorite new movie I’ve seen this summer is The Trip. This is a British movie that was evidently first a six-episode BBC television show and then was reedited into a feature film. This seems like a strange way to make a movie, as there must have been an hour or so of material from the sitcom cut out. But it works well. I’m curious to see what was included in the original show that was left out of the movie, but I don’t feel like anything is missing. As a film, it works well.

The story is about English actor/comedian Steve Coogan (played by English actor/comedian Steve Coogan), who is taking a road trip through the north of England, visiting restaurants and bed & breakfasts for an article he’s been contracted to write. He was planning on taking his American girlfriend, but she decided they need a break and has returned to America. So instead, Steve takes his friend, the Welsh actor/comedian Rob Brydon (played by Welsh actor/comedian Rob Brydon). The plot is really nothing more than these two traveling around, talking about what they would like to do in their careers, and working on various impressions. Yet there’s so much more going on.

The most immediately enjoyable parts of the movie feature the two competing with each other in performances. In one scene that will surely be remembered and replayed again and again, they both work on Michael Caine impressions. In another, they discuss wanting to make a period drama à la Braveheart or Rob Roy, and the conversation devolves into a hilarious bit about when a troupe of soldiers should rise before battle, whether they need to rise at daybreak or if maybe they could sleep in a little and get going by 9:30 following a continental breakfast. There are several set pieces along these lines that stand out and made me laugh incredibly hard. Before watching the movie, I had heard clips on the radio and seen some of the Michael Caine sequence in ads, and I feared that maybe I’d already experienced the best the movie had to offer, and though those scenes are some of the best, there are many, many more throughout.

What elevates this movie, however, is the quiet moments intertwined with the hilarity. Steve Coogan is a talented comic actor who has yet to really break out in America. My understanding is that in Britain, he is fairly well known for having played an iconic character for years on television. But in Hollywood, he’s still relatively unknown. I first saw him in the movie 24 Hour Party People (directed by Michael Winterbottom, who also directed The Trip), which is a fantastic film, and Coogan is great in it. I remember around that time hearing that he was going to break out and become an A-list actor as a result of that movie. The next thing I remember seeing him in was Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, another movie I loved. In this one, Coogan played Steve Coogan, a self-important actor who is hitting the big time following his performance in 24 Hour Party People. He meets with Alfred Molina and barely has time to spare for someone at Molina’s level of celebrity, which I found amusing in part because I would consider Molina more famous than Coogan, and now, years later, Coogan still hasn’t achieved the fame that the Steve of Coffee and Cigarettes seemed to feel was his due. I saw Coogan play Steve Coogan again in Winterbottom’s meta-adaptation of Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story. And for the third time, Coogan plays a version of himself in The Trip. In between these, he has been in bigger Hollywood movies, like Tropic Thunder and The Other Guys, but he has still never managed to become a household name in America. And this is the basis for the Steve character in The Trip. He is an actor who has been somewhat typecast as his television character in Britain and desperately wants to break out in Hollywood, but despite a decade of making movies, he has yet to reach the level he feels he’s entitled to.

The issue at the heart of The Trip is identity. Who is Steve Coogan? What kind of person is he? What kind of actor? Ultimately, the movie portrays him again and again as someone who desperately wishes to be something and someone he isn’t. Of course, actors make their living being people they aren’t, and that thread runs through the whole movie as both Steve and Rob attempt to be the better version of Michael Caine or of James Bond or of a Bond villain. Actors are supposed to not be themselves. But in The Trip, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are playing Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. And as the two interact, the differences between them emerge. Rob is married and has a baby. He is so aware of what makes him successful, that he has developed an iPhone app for one of his silly character voices. He’s content with his life and with his career. He’s a comedian. He’s an impressionist. He spends nearly as much of his time speaking in other people’s voices as he does his own, but he seems comfortable. He is most himself when he is Hugh Grant. Steve, on the other hand, is divorced. He chases younger women. He is a father but rarely talks to his children. He wishes he had the career of Michael Sheen. He thinks he has not been granted his due. He is discontented with his life and seems uncomfortable being himself. But, like Rob, Steve’s identity comes through most clearly and he seems the most comfortable when he is riffing on impressions and joking around. He is, deep down, a comedian, but he wishes he were a great dramatic actor. His failure to be himself, to accept who he truly is, is his great tragedy.

The Trip is fully worth watching solely on the merits of the comic scenes, but the exploration of identity lifts the film to another level. Steve Coogan, the character, is a modern Salieri, and Steve Coogan, the actor, plays the role so perfectly that it is clear he is a very talented dramatic actor as well as a talented comedian. I’m sure Steve Coogan could be a star on the level of Michael Sheen, but I hope he is content being Steve Coogan. That’s certainly good enough.