The Trip

Steve Coogan has been asked by The Observer to tour the country's finest restaurants, but after his girlfriend backs out on him he must take his best friend and source of eternal aggravation, Rob Brydon.

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The playlist Best Films of 2011 so far - Runners Up (in June):

“The Trip”—If you’re not familiar with the pleasantly curmudgeonly dynamic between Brit comics Steve Coogan and Rob Brdyon, “The Trip” is as good a place as any to start. Directed by Michael Winterbottom—who previously brought the pair together in “Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story”—the film finds the duo playing fictional, bickering versions of themselves. A self-absorbed Coogan invites Brydon on an assignment to review high end restaurants in northern England mostly because he can’t find anybody else to go with him. As the two tour, eat and talk, we are treated to endless, hilarious celebrity impressions (Brydon emphasizes that his take on folks like Michael Caine, Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins have been described as “stunningly accurate”) and blisteringly funny, casual asides. But underneath the constant quipping is an aching melancholy heart, as Coogan escapes time and again to call his girlfriend now auditioning in Los Angeles, with the distance and disconnection palpably felt over the dodgy transatlantic cell phone signal. Though edited down from a much longer six part series that aired on British television, “The Trip” doesn’t miss one beat. Hilarious, heartfelt and hugely enjoyable, if you can’t get away on vacation this summer, a detour with Coogan and Brydon instead, is a winning substitute.