This is a review of The Trip to Italy (2014)
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22 May
This is a review of The Trip to Italy (2014)
* NB A very crude headline, from The Trip (2010), is quoted *
There were things riding on The Trip to Italy (2014), where they had not been earlier at Cambridge Film Festival for The Trip (2010), and it easily won the double.
Afterwards, in the Q&A broadcast by satellite from one of the London Picturehouses, Steve Coogan gave credit to director Michael Winterbottom for the whole being greater than the sum of the parts (though Coogan twice succeeded in avoiding that classic formulation), which Rob Brydon (@RobBrydon) humorously undercut by saying that he disagreed, and that it was just a matter of pressing play and record. (Winterbottom was in the audience, but was not taking part, which Coogan impishly attributed to wishing to appear profound, and so not saying anything that might give a contrary impression.)
What Winterbottom has done with both films is to craft something in cinematic terms whose essential premise has also given rise to six-part series of thirty minutes : for the films feel like films, not cut down in any way from something else, and it appears that there is material in the film that is not in the series and vice versa, alongside what is in both (at any rate, that was what seemed to have been said when The Trip screened at Cambridge).
This film reverses the roles a little from the earlier one, with Coogan not so much the know-all who has learnt facts and quotations to throw into the conversation and impress, but a man with ‘a hiatus’ that conveniently leaves him free to accompany Brydon (one which, it turns out, he hopes will not extend into winter), whereas we see the latter succeed with wooing and work. [We should, however, be calling these semi-fictionalized sides to Coogan and Brydon by the names Steve and Rob, so that when we can tell at a glance whether actor or role is meant…]
For the Steve who pontificates triumphantly in the abbey ruins in The Trip, or who wondrously meets someone with a newspaper bearing the startling headline STEVE COOGAN IS A CUNT, bears a resemblance to Coogan, but only as a starting-point for bringing friends Rob and Steve together for a week of driving, joking, eating and thinking in an invented newspaper commission to cover some culinary hot-spots. The Steve of that film definitely wants to impress more, but, when Coogan said in the Q&A that he tried to learn a couple of quotations from Byron each night to throw into the next day’s improvisation, there is little knowing which is Winterbottom’s creating a persona for Steve, or Coogan embellishing it.
What, though, is clear is that Steve is perfectly de Niro at the lunch on Thursday, and that, in reverse role, Rob truly cracks him up with his inventiveness as Parky : in the Q&A, Brydom let us into the knowledge that he had done it so well, because he had been fired up by some antagonism with Coogan, and, when he felt it just working out, went with it. Who says that it is just oysters that can be irritated to produce pearls ?
When asked about how making the two films compared, Brydon said that this one had been more convivial, and Coogan readily agreed with him, repeating the word. Brydon also said that he had been surprised, in the first one, that Coogan would just suddenly declare We’re not using this !, and so seek to gain control over the material – from which we gathered that there was none (or less) of that this time.
In giving the pair Alanis Morissette’s debut album Jagged Little Pill from 1995 to have with them in the car (though skipping the already much-ridiculed track ‘Ironic’), Winterbottom* seemed, they thought, to be off key. However, they then realized that it worked, and that, in 2014, men of their age would be revisiting it** – simply the resource of that album gave them scope, over several car journeys, for :
* Speculations about how to say ‘Alanis’ (because Steve, with his flat in LA, says that names are pronounced in the States as one chooses) – and then Rob points out that she AM is Canadian
* Then wondering whether, if the name Alan made it there, it would be stressed on the second syllable, and making it long vowel-sound – ‘My name is Alahn’
* Singing along to a track, or interjecting comments between the words, or wondering where Avril Lavigne stands in relation to AM
* Steve’s comment about the sort of interesting woman whom Morisette once represented, but to whom one would now say Can you just put the tops back on these jars, please ?…
The delightful thing is that, when Steve overlooks that Morisette is not from the same part of North America, it is so seamless that we do not know whether Steve has been led astray by Coogan or by Winterbottom. Likewise, when they are boarding the ferry in the direction of Capri, Steve makes a comment about what an instrument-case is made of – as if, from his reply, Rob could care. It may be Steve / Coogan showing off his knowledge, but he is calling what is obviously too small to be anything other than a case containing a cello a double-bass.
With beautiful scenery and cinematography, Steve grumping at having to take photos of Rob with various Byronic or Shelleyean inscriptions (until, that is, the photographer from last time turns up again), and the sheer good-humoured balance of reflecting on mortality*** and enjoying the present, there is plenty enough to enjoy – with all the references to films and stars, with even a Mafia vignette woven in as Rob’s guilty, vengeful dream towards Steve****, The Trip to Italy is a delightful way of enjoying two men being together against the backdrop of history, their usual lives, and their desires, summed up in the shimmering waters off Capri into which Steve and his son dive.
End-notes
* Who had made the car a Mini so that they could make reference to The Italian Job – and, of course, to Michael Caine, on imitating whom Steve delights in giving Rob a masterclass in The Trip…
** Coogan insisted on correcting Brydon that they are not both 49, because he has not yet reached his birthday (Happy birthday for 14 October, Steve !).
*** With Brydon even, to Steve’s feigned / Coogan’s real disgust, giving his Small Man Trapped in a Box voice to a supine figure in a plastic box at Pompeii, and then having the Small Man agree with him about Steve being square (This is a real person, Steve says) : as the scene goes on, the humour wins through, at Steve’s expense. (Steve had the last laugh, because, in the Q&A, Brydon realized that his vocal chords would not let the Small Man out just then…)
**** A question by Tweet, via host Boyd Hilton, asked what each man thought most of the other. Brydon said that he had grudging respect for Coogan, who, hesitating to reciprocate, said (and seemed genuine) being at ease with what he has / who he is, amplifying that this is something that he has improved on, but Brydon is still better at doing.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
