The Trip, directed by Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People), was originally aired as a six part BBC Television sitcom edited down to this feature length film. While I think the episodic nature of the premise (not to mention the film’s length) would make it even more watchable in the shorter installments, this loosely improvisational, wildly entertaining romp stars celebrated British comedians, Steve Coogan (BAFTA winner for his role in The Trip) and Rob Brydon. It is a follow up to the 2006 film, A Cock and Bull Story, also directed by Winterbottom and joins The Guard and Win Win as one of the funniest films of the year to date.

Commissioned by The Observer to whip up a lifestyle article about fine dining and travel in the Lake District of northern England, a semi-fictional Steve Coogan invites his obliging friend Rob Brydon, apparently the last choice amongst Coogan’s mates to be traveling companion, to join him on a road trip after his girlfriend pulls out. Brydon’s chipper and relentless banter and Coogan’s doleful indifference to the job leads to a series of droll bickering, mock insults, recitals of Wordsworth and Coleridge and dueling impressions of movie stars in an attempt to outdo one another.

While I am not that familiar with the individual works of these comedians, The Trip is frequently hilarious, because Brydon and Coogan work so well together. In a personal and professional rut and somewhat self-obsessed, Coogan’s acerbic sense of humour alternately riffs on and clashes with Brydon’s impersonations, ranging from Michael Caine (the highlight), to Al Pacino, to Christoph Waltz.

The larger agenda, however, is to reveal the present tragedy of Coogan’s life. His first choice travel companion, Mischa (Margo Stilley), helped him plan the itinerary and then bowed out and went to work in the United States when the relationship hit a rough patch from which it’s unlikely to recover. Coogan trudges around the Yorkshire moors searching for places to get reception on his mobile – then stands in the fog and has cold, heartless conversations with Mischa, unable to express his desire to turn things around. He also converses disinterestedly with his over-enthusiastic American agent, who is unable to secure the role Coogan is after.

Coogan momentarily escapes the ordeal by sleeping with the attractive women they meet along the way, only to realize, when they slip away at ‘day break’ that he is stuck with Brydon, who is consent on having peculiar phone sex with his wife during the evenings and the thought of returning to her and his daughter at the end of the week. The trip doesn’t broaden or liberate either man, but blurs the lines between their everyday persona, and those they adopt as performers. The misery of Coogan’s life follows him and his choice of companion only draws out his desire to vent moodily about petty displeasures that plague his existence.

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