The Trip to Spain
A MOVIE ‘MOST ENJOYABLE WHEN IT’S LEAST RELEVANT’
The Trip To Spain
Rob Brydon’s quintessential line in The Trip to Spain comes when his travelling companion, Steve Coogan, has just sung the praises of Picasso’s genius ( and thus his own knowledge), pointing out that the man’s early work showed him to be an expert painter, before he decided to tear everything up and reinvent the art form.
Brydon calmly imbibes this lesson and then asks: “Are you a bit like Picasso?” And Coogan is stopped in his tracks, because how do you respond to a question like that? False humility? Open braggadocio? There’s no way out that doesn’t make you look like a prat. Conversation between these two is a duel of rapier wits.
The Trip to Spain is the third in a loose series, following 2010’s The Trip and 2014’s The Trip to Italy. The format ( if you can call it that; it’s almost plotless) is the same: Melancholy Coogan has been asked to write about restaurants in a particular region, while chirrupy Brydon tags along for company. And misery loves company.
Both actors were born in 1965, which gives them ( and viewers of a certain age) a shared set of cultural references and mid- life anxieties. And so, between tasting the delicacies of Spanish cuisine, they exercise, fret about aches, and try to outdo one another with impressions of Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Marlon Brando, Roger Moore and more.
Those impersonations remain the meat of this cinematic meal. Brydon at one point lapses into a spot- on and seemingly endless Moore during a discussion of the Moors in Spanish history. Even more bizarre is Coogan’s take on Picasso, who was played by Anthony Hopkins in 1996’s Surviving Picasso; but he mixes in some of Hopkins as Captain Bligh from 1984’s The Bounty: “I’ ll put the nose where the cheek is, and we will go round the Horn, and damn your eyes sir!”
Coogan’s character (they are playing versions of themselves, remember) seems most ill at ease with the passage of time, constantly recalling a trip he took through Spain 30 years earlier, and comparing himself with writers Laurie Lee ( As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning) and Miguel de Cervantes ( Don Quixote). Surveying modern wind- powered generators, he suggests the book he plans to write might be called Tilting at Turbines.
Fears of aging and irrelevance — a subplot finds Coogan being asked by his agent to accept the contributions of an up- and- coming screenwriter for his next project — give The Trip to Spain a certain wistfulness, particularly in the ambiguous final scene. ( The 108- minute film has been cut from a six- part British TV series, so perhaps something about that weird ending has been lost in the edit.)
In any case, the movie is most enjoyable when it’s least relevant. In another of Coogan’s windy diatribes, he goes on about cinematic metaphors, pointing out that a film can seem to be about a man looking for his car, when in fact it’s about a man looking for something much bigger.
There’s a pause. You know what Brydon’s going to say. You can see it in his face; you’ve probably already thought of it yourself. But it’s still funny. Wait for it. “A van?”
Touché. And cheers. The Trip to Spain opens Aug. 4 in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, and wider on Aug. 11.