A Citizen Reviews a Fine Film Currently Showing at The Grand Cinema: "The Trip"

From time to time, we like to bring various enjoyable community perspectives to Exit133. Please enjoy this amusing film review by Raye Watts, who uses the euphemism “artistic” to excuse the fact that she is incompetent with mental math, personal finances, and social interaction. When not misusing punctuation or hauling moth-eaten furniture into her portion of a tiny apartment, she may be found skulking in theaters. Thanks – Dan

I surmise that professional film critics are winged to private screenings in the back of a well-stocked and temperature-controlled rickshaw. The film begins at their leisure, and a temperament of collected neutrality bestows each picture like a benevolent magistrate.

In contrast, I, the humble layperson, must navigate a dizzying ordeal just to find the venue. Arriving at the unfamiliar theater mid-way through the credits, seething and flustered, I haul open the door and dart around the corner. Rather inopportunely, the seats are oriented to face the entry and I am being scrutinized by shadowy patricians peering from the sparsely-populated arena. Having vaulted my way into a seat, I glare at the screen more like the heckling, curmudgeonly Statler and Waldorf Muppets than any serene critic.

Perhaps this peevish and contrarian mood is the optimal vantage from which to weigh the merit of a comedy like The Trip, and its ability to wrest a favorable reaction from the most miserly of moods. A crash test, if you will, to determine if the film can withstand the impact of running full-tilt into a churlish wall relatively unscathed.

Gauntlet thrown, lengthy disclaimer in place. The Trip was a measured success, for I left the theater grinning and with blood pressure returned to normal. As the title proclaims, this film is a road movie perched on the thin premise that English comedic actor Steve Coogan, playing a caricature of himself, is writing an article for the Observer on the Northern English cuisine. Questioning why an actor has been pegged for this writing assignment, without any decipherable aptitude or interest, is clearly beside the point as this detail is quickly abandoned.

Steve had slated this excursion as romantic foray into culinary tourism for himself and his beautiful, braying American girlfriend. Foreseeably, their relationship clarifies like good English butter and they separate to their respective countries. Thus, Steve calls on his friend-cum-adversary, fellow actor-comedian, Rob Brydon. Their on-screen rivalry is a reprisal of their self-entitled roles in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

Like any comedy that confines two men to close proximity, there is the requisite rash of homo-squeamish jokes and gimmicks. Though tiresome, these ploys, accompanied by references to radical 18th century poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, reveal the confounding breadth of English humor. The men are at their best when they improvise banter, performing dueling impressions of notable actors, singing renditions of Swedish pop songs. The volley of references at times derails the attention of the viewer, as you are forced to frantically rack your arsenal of pop cultural knowledge to place the characters, actors, and musicians who are numbered among the parodied.

I considered providing a compendium of names to bear in mind, but this would undermine the rapport between the two men. When the audience, like one foreign woman in the film, looks bemusedly at the comedians who are eagerly exerting themselves to extort laughter from an unresponsive audience, their desperate fervor and myopic commitment is touching.

Unfortunately, the pathos of the celebrity comedian becomes a little too heavy handed to be entirely effective. Steve is shown trudging through the heath, like the Heathcliff character he’d so love to play, trying to reach out to his family and erstwhile girlfriend on his cell phone, and left feeling entirely isolated and inadequate. In the first instance of this bleakness, I hoped the excessively impassioned piano music was a deadpan mockery of this familiar trope of the crying jester. Alas, no. And yet, perhaps we should indulge him his ponderous existential plight, for it serves as a bracing palette-cleanser before he reapplies his comedic mask (this is a foodie movie after all).

Though unpolished at times, Rob and Steve play off each other well and deliver such a wide array of humor that everyone is bound to laugh. For the Monty Python fans among us, there is one scene reminiscent of the “Whicker Island” sketch with the influx of interviewers treading on each other’s toes. Finally, be sure to eat before watching the film as, like the jokes, eventually one of the many gourmet dishes they trot out will fell you.

SHOWINGS
The Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett, Tacoma, WA 98402
Sat Aug 6, 2011 4:15, 8:50
Sun Aug 7, 2011 4:15, 8:50
Mon Aug 8, 2011 (4:15), 8:50
Tue Aug 9, 2011 (4:15), 8:50
Wed Aug 10, 2011 (4:15), 8:50
Thu Aug 11, 2011 (4:15), 8:50