The Trip to Greece
Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon close out their decade-long journey across Europe in a way I never would have expected watching the first film from 2010. In “The Trip,” Coogan and Brydon play somewhat heightened versions of themselves on a trip through England visiting local tourist spots, and taking in delectable food, for a story for The Observer. It’s basically a comedic take on travelogue food shows, with Coogan and Brydon taking jabs at one another while being forced to spend a week together away from their regular lives. In “The Trip to Greece,” they lay everything out on the table, and it’s as satisfying a closing to a series as I’ve ever seen.
“The Trip” is actually a TV series that Winterbottom- who had previously directed the pair in the fantastic “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”- has edited down each season to a single, 100-minute feature as Coogan and Brydon go through England, Italy, Spain and now Greece. Along the way, the sights, and food, are wonders to behold as the actors riff on their respective lives and careers, and fill time doing dueling impersonations. In “The Trip to Greece,” they add a layer of narrative wherein the pair are tracing the journey of Odysseus on his way home from Turkey. No, we do not start in Turkey; in a break from the previous chapters, the pair are already in Greece, which is a great way for the film to get started and just hit the ground running. Along the way, we see them take calls from home- Rob and his daughter, Emma, Steve and his son, Joe- but for Steve, the news is not good; his father is not doing well. He knows he might have to stop the trip short if the worst happens.
This might actually be the funniest film of the series. Maybe that’s just relative to “The Trip to Spain” being, for me, the least funny of the four films, but there are some riffs that Coogan and Brydon go on that are simply marvelous and hilarious. (Sadly, their Michael Caine impressions have been retired this time out, but the Dustin Hoffman-off more than makes up for it.) As they drive, we get Brydon bringing up the musical “Grease” and a rendition of Vangelis’s “Chariots of Fire” that simply killed. We also get great nods to the Odyssey narrative along the way, especially the sirens. And Coogan just cannot stop bringing up his BAFTAs, especially when they’re doing a photo shoot at an ancient Greek theatre.
Seeing these two grow in their bond, and what their travels have revealed about them, is what makes the final stretch of this film work. Like “Spain,” “The Trip to Greece” has one of the pair staying in the country while the other one goes home. In the last film, it was Coogan staying to finish writing a book about his time in Spain while Brydon went home to his family. In this one, Coogan is the one who goes, and it’s for the reason you’ve probably guessed from my description above. Brydon isn’t alone, however; he has his wife come join him in Ithica, much like Odysseus going home to his wife. The cumulative impact of the two stories, and how they diverge, at the end makes this feel as definite a conclusion as you could expect, and a journey that will leave a lasting impact on the people who took it. Including the audience.
