THE TRIP TO ITALY

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Straight Man — Funny Man — Both
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon Take Another Bath Together

You couldn’t pick two more entertaining companions for a cinematic road trip in Italy than Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon.

Following on the success of “The Trip” (2010), in which the duo went on a comic car tour of Northern England to sample its gastronomical delights, “The Trip to Italy” improves however slightly on the first film’s casual design.  A key difference rests with Steve Coogan's shift away from treating Brydon with any condescension, rather he seems to genuinely appreciate Brydon's gifts as a comic, and as a man.

Writer/director Michael Winterbottom (“24 Hour Party People”) returns to manage the shenanigans that Coogan and Brydon get up to while purportedly writing culinary articles for The Observer.

Having rented a Mini Cooper — a reference to Peter Collinson’s original film version of “The Italian Job” (which featured Michael Caine in its leading role) — our free-associating duo sets out on a scenic tour of Italy, mapped by locations where the poets Percy Shelley and Lord Byron left their marks. Poetry of language is always on Coogan’s and Brydon’s minds, although more so on Brydon’s agenda. The duo’s itinerary takes them from northern Piemonte down to the Amalfi Coast with plenty of stops at distinguished restaurants along the way. However, Brydon's hopes of visiting Sicily — for obvious mafia related movie references — comes under attack from outside forces. 

A stream of devilish details haunts the film’s waggish tone. Coogan has taken the liberty of disconnecting the car’s iPod jack to avoid listening to Brydon’s objectionable taste in music. Still, Brydon has a trick up his sleeve; he has with him one CD: Alanis Morissette’s “Jagged Little Pill” album from 1995. Two skilled British actors singing along in a Mini Cooper to Alanis Morissette is as funny as it sounds, which is to say pretty damned amusing.

Watching Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon doing dueling impersonations of Michael Caine is a pure, simple pleasure that must be experienced. Where the first film was content to pepper lightly with just a few impersonation duels, this movie lets Coogan and Brydon go at it full-tilt in fancy restaurants where neither fellow patrons nor staff seem to mind the outbursts.

The actors’ contest turns to Caine’s performances as Batman’s butler. When the pair slip into an improv sketch involving an assistant director charged with telling Christian Bale and Tom Hardy not to mumble, the humor meter goes into the red. Brydon’s kneejerk habit of slipping into frequent spasms of Al Pacino impressions also never gets old.

For what is clearly a carefully thought-out script, “The Trip to Italy” has a remarkable naturalness to it. Lush Italian locations celebrated in films such as Ingrid Bergman’s “Voyage to Italy,” Humphrey Bogart’s “Beat the Devil,” and Jean Luc Goddard’s “Contempt,” come into play with a sense of appreciation for cinema history. Still, nothing is above making a joke about.

Rob Brydon’s hysterical conversation with a lava-covered victim of the Pompeii volcano (kept in a glass coffin) dances on comic principals celebrated by the likes of Monty Python. Everywhere you look, history keeps rearing its inevitable head for Coogan or Brydon to tickle when they aren’t feasting on Italian food and wine. This is a vacation you’ll want to go on more than once.  

Not Rated. 98 mins.

THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY

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Mixing Menus —
Overdo Foodie Movie Arrives With the Hallström Seal

The foodie romance genre has been oddly absent from American cinema lately. It’s been five long years since "Julie & Julia" made audiences think about French cuisine vis a vis Julia Childs and a blogger on a mission to cook her way though Childs's first book.

“Ratatouille” (2007) reminded audiences about their taste buds in an animated kids’ movie that arrived the same year that Catherine Zeta-Jones bumped uglies with Aaron Eckhart in a pleasing little food flick entitled “No Reservations.”

Any short list of foodie movies is sure contain Lasse Hallström’s charming filmic appetizer “Chocolat” (2000), in which Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp awaken each other’s passions in a small French village where Binoche’s character opens a chocolate shop. Yum.

Returning to a provincial French location, Hallström’s second foray into the cinema-of-food effectively makes him an honorary chairman of the genre’s board of directors.

The director behind such food-tinged titles as “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and “The Cider House Rules” cut his teeth making music videos for ABBA in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Famous for his wonderful use of suffused lighting to evoke nostalgic moods (think “My Life as a Dog” or “An Unfinished Life”), Hallström presents beautiful compositions that lend themselves to mouth-watering depictions of cuisine — in this case, from India and France. Exotic spices from India do indeed harmonize with traditional French dishes on the screen. As the saying goes, “you can almost taste it.”

Even if its romantic tension gets muddled and the film’s pacing and editing go out the window in the third act, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” manages to connect its head, heart, and stomach via solid ensemble performances, led by reliable pros Helen Mirren and Om Puri. Still, lust gets short shrift amid a competition that develops between the story’s young pair of cooking lovers.

After escaping tragedy in Mumbai, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) and his family realize their dream of recreating their deceased mother’s highly revered cooking. The family opens an Indian restaurant in a quaint French village — the kind you see on postcards. When it comes to preparing familiar or unacquainted dishes, Hassan is a natural in the kitchen.

French-local Marguerite earns a place in Hassan’s heart and stomach. Hassan wants Marguerite to teach him about French cuisine. It doesn’t hurt that newcomer Charlotte Le Bon has an adorable overbite and heartbreaking eyes. Marguerite’s cooking’s isn’t bad either, but she isn’t as skilled as Hassan at interpreting and elevating traditional dishes. Herein springs the chefs’ competition that variously derails the groovy attraction between Manish Dayal and Charlotte Le Bon — however compelling the couple is on screen together.

Both Dayal and Le Bon give inspired performances worthy of promising futures. 

The allure between Marguerite and Hassan is further complicated by her employment as a sous-chef-in-training at the Michelin-awarded classic French cuisine restaurant that sits 100 feet across the road from Hassan’s festive Indian-themed place — as enhanced by loud traditional music and colorful lighting.

Helen Mirren’s Madame Mallory lords over her restaurant’s coveted two Michelin stars as though they were her children. Everyday in her kitchen is a learning clinic for her more than willing staff. The imperious Lady Mallory takes umbrage toward the rival restaurant’s threat to her closely guarded establishment. She sabotages the Kadam family’s restaurant with a multi-pronged attack. She’s not above buying up all the stock of certain foods from the local farmers’ market or filing nuisance complaints with the town mayor.

The clash of cultures, combined with the threat of economic loss, incites one of Madame Mallory’s loyal chefs to commit a racist act of violence against the Kadams. However, the plot movement doesn’t develop enough to support, or resolve, the politically and racially charged subplot as it unfolds. The movie temporarily gets out of its depth before snapping back into place. The third act is a mess, but that’s another story.  

Screenwriter Steven Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things”) tries to do too much. He wants the film to be part cultural polemic, part foodie heaven, part romantic love story, and part family film. It’s not that any of these elements needed to be mutually exclusive, but that they should fulfill the demands of the foodie movie genre.

You’ll get a sensory charge from Lasse Hallström’s signature visual treatment of delicious plates, bowls, and pans of beautiful dishes made of fresh ingredients. Still, the film could have worked better if Knight would have stuck to a simpler formula. Romance, sex, and food go together like a knife, fork, and spoon. The author’s stretch to make a bland political statement, while conforming to the demands of a “PG-rating,” left no room for the “sex” part of the equation. For that kind of thing, check out Fina Torres’s “Woman on Top” (2000), starring Penélope Cruz as a Brazilian chef who moves to San Francisco. Hot, hot, hot.

Rated PG. 122 mins.