FILM REVIEW: THE TRIP TO ITALY

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in The Trip to Italy.

To life 

By John Esther

With gourmet Italian cuisine, humorous banter, lush scenery, marvelous hotels, hilarious impersonations of such folks as Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and characters in The Dark Knight Rises, plus discussions about Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Roman Holiday, Godard's Contempt and a host of other issues a trip through Italy can offer, what is there not to like about The Trip to Italy? Very little. 

On another hand, our dynamic duo are stuck with one excruciating CD to listen to in their rented Mini: Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, which they play too frequently, and seem to enjoy on occasion. And our protagonists discussion about Frankenstein is rather irksome to those who know the story of its origins, author, intent, censorship, distribution, reception and history. 

The follow up to writer-director Michael Winterbottom's 2010 film, The Trip, the sequel reunites Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan once again to travel in style, work their improvisational brilliance, and remind us that maybe the true test of any relationship is traveling together -- all the while making the viewer hungry. Only this time the film is set in Italy not England. 

A smart, funny film about friendship, film, culture, literature, history, art, and coming to terms with what it means to mature, manifestly speaking, in show business (pretty much everything The Expendables 3 is not), watching The Trip to Italy is probably the most fun I have had at the movies so far this year.

FILM REVIEW: TRISHNA

Trishna (Frieda Pinto) in Trishna.

Another Tess of time and place

By Ed Rampell

English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom has adapted his countryman Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, which mostly takes place in 19^th century rural Britain. In Winterbottom’s updated version, Tess becomes Trishna and the film is set in contemporary India, with a mostly Indian cast, starring the preternaturally beautiful Freida Pinto (the female lead in 2009’s Best Picture Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire) in the title role.

Adaptations can be risky business. The good news is that Winterbottom’s reworking of Hardy’s classic is inspired. His update hews somewhat close to Hardy in terms of plot, but is especially true thematically, more faithful to the original in spirit than in letter.

The changes currently sweeping India parallel those in Hardy’s novel set against the backdrop of England’s 19^th century industrial revolution, as economic upheavals forced the peasantry away from the countryside and into the cities. Trishna (Pinto, arguably motion pictures’ prettiest actress today) is a simple country girl whose beauty attracts Jay (as in Gatsby!)Singh, the son of an upper class family of Indian ancestry who has lived abroad. Jay is depicted by Oxford educated Riz Ahmed, who is of Indian/Pakistani heritage and starred as Shafiq Rasul, one of the railroaded Tipton Three in Winterbottom’s 2006 searing indictment of torture, The Road to Guantanamo.

Besotted by Trishna’s beauty, Jay pursues her, using his class advantages to lure her away from her ancestral village in Rajasthan, first to a luxury resort owned by his worldly wise if blind father (Roshan Seth). But the hotel biz is not for Jay; as he has show biz aspirations Jay moves to Bombay (Mumbai), where he and Trishna can live openly as an unmarried couple. The couple gets involved in Bollywood, but as one artist points out, Jay’s main talent is that his father is rich.

Trishna, on the other hand, not only has beauty, but can dance, and it seems as if this slumdog might become a millionaire by appearing in Bollywood musicals. But talentless Jay, who wants to keep her all to himself, discourages her. As a lower class -- or caste -- female Trishna is curiously passive. The story shows how in patriarchal society, all too often young women have little recourse for social advancement other than their looks, sexuality and youth. A tragic predicament, to be sure, especially in pre-feminist developing nations (although India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all had female heads of government and of state, while America is yet to have a woman president, so perhaps our ladies are not that much freer than their Third World sisters?).

Complications ensue and the couple must relocate to another one of Jay’s family’s resorts in the countryside, where social mores are more traditional and out-of-wedlock relationships are taboo. The property formerly was a palace, and Jay is ensconced in the bedroom of a medieval maharajah who had about 18 concurrent concubines. Meanwhile, it never seems to occur to Jay to wed his social “inferior” Trishna, who must pretend to be just another servant girl, as she becomes the Kama Sutra-reading hotelier’s virtual sex slave. Sometimes, beauty can be a curse.

The uprooted, cosmopolitan Jay seems to yearn for what he supposes is Trishna’s simplicity, rooted in ancient Indian culture. On the other hand, Trishna sees in Jay her entrée -- or, more crudely put -- ticket to that modern world beckoning to India’s rural masses, as urbanization, outsourcing and the like rock their age-old society. They are caught between two worlds. Opposites may attract, but they can also repel. Trishna’s humble origins have denied her an education, but beneath her passivity a fire is being stoked. Unable to verbally express herself, let’s just say that all hell breaks loose.

D.W. Griffith believed film photographs thought, and the Pinto wears her character’s inner life upon the sleeve of her exquisite face. She is such a natural thespian that we can virtually read her mind in close ups, an expressively eloquent actress in the tradition of the great silent screen artistes, like Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish. In films such as 2010’s Miral and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, whether playing an oppressed Palestinian or a London beauty who bewitches Josh Brolin’s married writer, Pinto demonstrates a range and depth. Imparting a Third World aesthetic on the screen, the Bombay-born actress and former model heralds a breakthrough in world cinema.

Winterbottom’s relocating of Tess of the d'Urbervilles to India is an eureka! movie moment, enhanced by its on location shooting in the subcontinent. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, I extend a laurel and Thomas Hardy handshake to Winterbottom.

 

  

  

 

FILM REVIEW: THE TRIP

Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in The Trip.

One up falling down

By Don Simpson

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's uncanny chemistry was quite evident in Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and it only makes sense that director Michael Winterbottom would do his best to milk their personalities in a reprise performance, albeit without the ins and outs and pomp and circumstance of Laurence Sterne's post-modern-before-there-was-modern novel. This time around, Winterbottom keeps the hyphens to a minimum and opts to ground the narrative on a singular and logical plane of existence; well, other than a few dream sequences -- one featuring a brilliant cameo by Ben Stiller.

Steve (Steve Coogan) is commissioned to go road tripping across Northern England to critique six fancifully unique restaurants for the Observer. Steve's foodie American girlfriend, Mischa (Margo Stilley), was the original impetus behind Steve pitching this story, but she has recently returned to the U.S. to take a break from their relationship. Caught in a lurch -- he does not want to do this trip solo -- Steve phones Rob (Rob Brydon), a fellow thespian with whom Steve bickers and competes with non-stop. The Observer is picking up the tab for the expenses, and Steve is willing to split his wages with Rob 60/40. It is an offer that Rob cannot refuse, even if it means leaving his family behind.

Thus Steve and Rob commence their journey northward on a Monday morning. We quickly learn that Steve enjoys giving his passenger (and us) a verbal overview of all of the roads he will be taking to their next destination. (Steve also points out that he prefers traditional maps over GPS "sat maps".) As soon as they hit the misty moors, Steve turns on his preordained soundtrack of Joy Division's "Atmosphere" -- a music choice that Rob does not think suits their surroundings, but it does serve to bind this film to another in Winterbottom's oeuvre that also featured Coogan and Brydon, 24 Hour Party People. (You did not really expect Winterbottom to completely keep the Meta at bay, did you?)

Together Steve and Rob traverse painterly landscapes that one couldn't paint -- well, one could but it would not be the same -- and visit the homes of renowned poets such as Samuel Coleridge and William Wordsworth as well as other poetically historic landmarks such as Bolton Abbey. The shoddy-at-best cellphone reception in the desolate moors makes Steve's endless tug-o-war with his agents to pave the path towards acting success all that more difficult. At 44-years old (or he has been 41-years old for the last three years), Steve's separation with Mischa, strained relationship with his son, and the declining state of his acting career (he claims that he has lost countless roles to Michael Sheen) weigh heavily on him; so Steve contends with his mid-life existential crises by bedding beautiful women, drinking often, and getting stoned (according to Steve, "most creative people smoke marijuana or hash"). Rob, on the other hand, is a happily devoted husband and father, who seems perfectly content with the state of his career.

Road movies, buddy movies, foodie reality television shows -- as Rob says, "it is 2010, everything has been done before, all you can do is do it again, but better." But what has not been done before (at least not that I know of) is a combination road movie-buddy movie-foodie reality television show, and that is what Winterbottom sets out to do. But that is also somewhat deceiving, because even though Winterbottom shows us fleeting bits of back of the house food preparation, and allows the restaurants to announce each of their beautifully realized dishes to Steve and Rob (and therefore to us), The Trip is not actually about the food. Instead, the gorgeous restaurants and their culinary creations (such as a green alcoholic beverage that Rob compares to a "childhood garden") are utilized as a unique backdrop for some brilliant bits of purely improvised comedy. (Note: no one is credited as the writer of The Trip.) Sometimes a particular food will trigger a tangential conversation for a while, but the talk always seems to return back to Steve and Rob attempting to one-up each other with dueling impressions (of Michael Caine, Richard Burton, Al Pacino, Woody Allen and various James Bonds), reciting poetry, and riffing upon various permutations of made up dialogue (such as an epic pep talk before an epic battle, "To bed, gentlemen, for at daybreak we rise!"). The absurd banter is relentless -- as Steve comments to Rob, "It's really exhausting keeping all of this going, isn't it?" -- and often careens into becoming uncomfortably mean-spirited. It is perfectly clear that these "bumless chums" actually do care for each other; they might even admire each other's work. They just do not want to share a bed -- or even a hotel room -- no matter how large it is.

Steve is a bit too narcissistic and patronizing for my comedic tastes (that is also the only fault I have with the otherwise pitch-perfect Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story), even though it is often done for ironic effect. For example, Steve does not think well of actors and comedians who rely on impressions beyond the age of 40 -- a position that is purposely patronizing towards Rob, but loses significantly more weight each time Steve does an impression. Steve, who is from Manchester, also takes a few digs at Rob's home country of Wales, repeatedly stating that Northern England has as unique an identity as Wales does.

The Trip originally ran in Britain as a six-episode series for BBC and the theatrical version is a concatenated version of that series. Several critics have already noted that the relentless abrasiveness of Steve and Rob's bickering is better served in small doses, making the six-episode BBC series sound a bit more appetizing. Being that Winterbottom is serving the United States the whole enchilada in one 107 minute sitting is a curiosity to me. Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story did not do well in the U.S. theaters -- taking in a mere $1.25 million, and I do not see how The Trip will be any more appealing to American theatergoers. I, for one, enjoyed The Trip, but I often find myself in the minority when it comes to Winterbottom.