movie review: The Trip to Spain (2017)
My least disappointment (due to lack of expectations:)) from this year’s TriBeCa Film Festival was The Trip to Spain. The movie was third in The Trip series. If you haven’t seen The Trip, the best way I can describe it is that it is Before Sunrise for food minus romantic angle between protagonists (or maybe not?). Now if you haven’t seen Before Sunrise, we have bigger problems to deal with here.
The Trip series focuses on you into two friends traveling around, tasting food and talking about nothing yet engaging and funny. They take a road trip within one country, moving from one restaurant to another and talking about many things along the way. You feel like you are almost in an intrusive conversation between two friends which is what this is supposed to be.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon did a great job in the original Trip. It was intimate and a new idea. Their next movie, The Trip to Italy, however didn’t do anything new. They had the same jokes, same banter, same story — just a new location. The third installment seems to have pulled itself back from the shambles of the second film and is able to provide more than just the usual banter you expect from the duo.
Steve is struggling to even keep is manager, is in love with a younger married woman and Rob is struggling to keep his shit together with a settled family life. Basically first world problems we all deal with everyday. Amidst all this the idea of going on a trip together again and sampling food through the beautiful country of Spain is an idea anyone would jump over. Steve and Rob meander through the country with many pit stops – some for food and some for not. You do feel like you are on the journey with them and that aspect is hard to beat in The Trip series.
As the movie draws go a close there are many times when you feel the movie should have already ended and then when it does end, there is a strange ending. I am not sure in today’s time politics and what is happening in the world around terrorism can be ignored by anyone. However, for some reason when I saw this movie talk about it, it felt out of place.
I so recommend giving this one a try if you have been a fan of The Trip and getting back into the conversations of Rob and Steve.
Rating: 3/5
P.S. If you, like me, love food and want some more food related material to read and new places to check out, try this new blog Wander To Eat.