Steve Coogan Rob Brydon Marta Barrio Claire Keelon Tim Leach
Much like The
Trip (2010) and The Trip to Italy
(2014), Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon do their guy touring thing, this time in
Spain, with (mostly) witty repartee, petty bickering, and comedic miming of
celebrities while dining in exquisite restaurants and motoring through
spectacular scenery. Thanks to
cinematographer James Clarke, we get a “you are there” experience, depending on
the power of our imagination.
This is more than a travelogue, though, in that
the actors and director Michael Winterbottom have seen to it that both
emotionally substantive and truly funny scenes are a part of it. No “writer” is listed, implying that
much of the dialog is improvisational. The story touches on professional
rivalry and the need for self-advocacy (or sometimes, simply luck), ruminations
and banter about aging, the ever-present real-life situations that impact the
trip, and genuine heartbreaks and disappointments.
The audience I was with in the screening was
ideally responsive, and applauded at the end. I enjoyed it almost as much, but tired a bit of the
impersonation sequences. There
were a lot: Mick Jagger, Michael
Caine, John Hirt, Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, Woody Allen, Errol Flynn, Sean
Connery, and more…and a Bach-Swingle-Singers-like rendition of Herb Alpert’s
Band. Coogan and Brydon compete
and argue about who does a better job of imitating.
Although I did like the Herb Alpert tune, I
found more entertaining than the impersonations the sequences where one or the
other would assume the role of the expert scientist-historian, showing off
their knowledge of the disciplines.
It was surprising to me that a line I found laugh-out-loud funny (“Time
flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana”), is actually an illustration
used by linguists “as an example of a garden path sentence or syntactic
ambiguity, and in word play as an example of punning, double entendre, and
antanaclasis” (Wikipedia). Kudos
to whoever knew that term and inserted it. Another funny sequence is when the producers of Steve’s and
Rob’s show dress them up and have them pose as Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza. Their irritation and
discomfort made the scene.
The ending sequences are rather tender and
surprising in their quality of “life goes on…”
A travelogue to Spain with humor,
exquisite meals, spectacular road trips, and the preoccupations of 50+ year-old
men.
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