The Trip to Greece

 

We sense throughout The Trip to Greece, the fourth and final installment of the film and TV series following Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as they make their way around the hotels and tourist spots and fine-dining establishments of the world, that reality is catching up to our heroes. Coogan and Brydon play fictional, heightened variations on themselves; their onscreen personae, filled with petty jealousies, are constantly looking to one-up one another like an old couple. The imitations they roll out are familiar ones — Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro, Ray Winstone — and while those are fun, what makes the whole thing work so well is the fact that these grown men with their dueling impressions continue to be so wildly competitive with each other. Still, it’s hard to escape the sadness in this film, set amid both global and personal tragedy. What remains at the end are not the jokes or the food but the sense that the past is never quite done with us, that today’s heartbreaks and passions and tragedies are variations on ancient patterns.