Touches You

Redundant and unnecessary.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I don't think I laughed once. No wonder, I got it at the Dollar store, couldn't sell it in regular stores. I'd rank it someplace on a scale as "Eraserhead". These guys just act weird, not funny.

The scant artifice of director Michael Winterbottom's The Trip is beguiling in an Edward Albee, two people sitting on a park bench kind of way. In this case the bench is replaced by some of Northern England's most elegant restaurants and the two people sitting opposite each other more or less play slightly wittier versions of themselves. But unlike an Albee play, The Trip doesn't delight in frankness or extremes. The stakes here are low, the conflicts intimate and sub-textual and the trials that befall our two heroes aren't likely to create much smoke.This can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on a couple of factors. Those who saw My Dinner with Andre (1981) back in the day and said, "give me more of that please," will no doubt already sold on the idea of two frienemies breaking bread together. Shot in a naturalistic style complete with muted color tones, The Trip doesn't exactly ingratiate itself as a fun movie for general audiences. Furthermore the film is a highlight reel of a BBC miniseries of the same name therefore guaranteeing that unless you're the kind of person who wonders into a movie blind, you'll probably walk in being a fan of the series and therefore you'll automatically enjoy it.But to the rest of us, The Trip runs the risk of being insufferable. At the thematic center of the film is Steve Coogan's professional rivalry with Rob Brydon. A rivalry which is revisited repeatedly with long-winded conversations punctuated by petty one-upsmanship. The banter is funny, witty and refreshingly organic with equally on-point Michael Caine impressions serving the largest supply of belly laughs. Yet because much of the dialogue is improvised it's also primordial, relying heavily on the the occasional quip instead of the usual setups and payoffs.This becomes a problem as the characters progress through each dinner. Coogan and Brydon are wisely concentrated on the power dynamic between them but they never seem all that worried about story progression. One dinner bleeds into the other, into the other with talk of media and name-dropping becoming conversational filler. It gets repetitive and even a little grating as the camera teases us with ten second reprieves in the kitchen to see what's simmering the the pan. Then we're brought right back to Coogan and Brydon who never seem all that jazzed about the food they're eating.Those in the know will hopefully be entertained by the pleasant dinner conversation and the occasional drive through back country while listening to ABBA. Yet lacking buildup, tension or anything commonly associated with, you know, "movies", The Trip is liable to exclude regular audiences before they even hit coat check.

Actor Steve Coogan (Steve Coogan) agrees to write for The Observer newspaper to go on a tour of restaurants in the north of England. He planned to go with gourmet girlfriend Mischa but she left him to work in America. He recruits his happily-married 11 year long actor friend Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon) to join him. Coogan is still chasing skirts and chasing that Hollywood stardom. Emma is Coogan's assistant.This is a B.S. movie. It's fiction that feels real. The two actors are playing an alt version of themselves and there is a reality to their friendship. It works best when the two faux-characters B.S. each other. The best B.S. are their impersonations and the funniest impersonation is their constant need for Michael Caine. There is an aimlessness to the so-called plot. Like the characters, I also want to go home at some point and the movie is probably a bit too long.

This film strikes the viewer with its captivating simplicity ,from start to finish you can hardly believe that the people in the movie were actually acting ,the brilliant performances by Coogan and Brydon augments the already witty and well written dialogue that came off very naturally as an everyday conversation of two friends eating in a restaurant ,with hardly any impression of "synthetic" dialogue, but nonetheless keeping it fun and interesting to watch ,with enough jokes to keep you smiling for a good part of the movie. And if it isn't for the dialogue , "The trip" is definitely worth watching for the beautiful shots of the beautiful English countryside.