Home » Reviews » The Trip to Spain movie review: Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan's delightful film is peppered with melancholy
The Trip to Spain movie review: Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan's delightful film is peppered with melancholy
The Trip to Spain the third instalment in The Trip franchise, is a welcome addition to the food and frolic movie genre.
3.5/5
Jan 21, 2022
The Trip to Spain
Story:
British comedians Rob Bryden and Steve Coogan team up for a third time to traverse the repugnantly scenic European countryside, tasting one delicious meal after another in epicurean Spanish diners.
Review:
What exactly is it that makes The Trip to Spain, the third iteration of Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan’s fictional travelogue franchise, such a delightful watch? Our cinema, more often than not, attempts to replicate movie successes with sequels, prequels and reboots, churning out more of the same sort of content again and again.
For ones who are familiar with either The Trip or The Trip to Italy, this film doesn’t offer something pathbreaking in terms of its narrative format. Yet, there is a sense of warm familiarity in watching two middle-aged men engaging in playful one-upmanship, sharing nuggets of history, ruminating about mid-life crises and death, and gorging on European delicacies in some of the finest diners of the country.
Coogan and Brydon return to play semi-fictionalised versions of themselves, and director Michael Winterbottom mines their easy chemistry to great effect. So the film begins with Coogan roping in Brydon for an all-expense-paid workcation where he will be penning a memoir and Brydon would be reviewing restaurants. Brydon realises that a trip to Spain is perhaps the best distraction from wailing babies at his house. Arguably the calmer of the two, childbirth at 50 has left Brydon slightly rattled.
Coogan, on the other hand, is delighted for the opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time with a friend. He has just come to terms with the fact that he is in love with his former, now married girlfriend, and his loneliness and bachelordom has finally started to dawn on him. Their equation, however endearing, evidently does not spill over beyond work. Thus, both seem to dearly cherish the time they get to spend with one another, bonding over similar concerns, with a little bit of humour on the side.
None of this is spelt out, though. In fact, never are Bryden and Coogan seen ruminating on their partnership. It is the lack of verbose declarations of friendship and a jaunty ego battle that makes The Trip to Spain feel more like a docu-style drama with free-flowing, overlapping conversations than a fiction film.
The pair sets off on a food-tasting spree on a week-long expedition through some disturbingly picturesque European countryside. Along the way, we get Mick Jagger and Roger Moore, and of course, Michael Caine impressions. The film is steeped in gentle melancholy, the kind that leaves a lingering bittersweet taste. Our heroes are 50 now, and suddenly more aware of their mortality and insecure about their careers. They are aware that their careers have been nearly not as impersonation worthy.
Verdict: The Trip movie series feels like they are tailor-made to ease the sting of leading quarantined lives for over two years now. These lushly produced food porn movies are as comforting as Nigella Lawson’s sticky fig pudding on Christmas evening. And even with two preceding movies, The Trip to Spain is a welcome addition to the franchise.
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