“Chemistry” is kind of an over-used term among film critics and other writers. It’s used to describe any situation where two actors are on roughly the same page in a movie where they’re asked to recite lines against a backdrop that will later include rampaging dinosaurs or the latest world-destroying laser beam. The movies, in large part, are just moving these actors around like set dressing needed to move the plot along and adequately setup the next franchise installment.
Watching The Trip To Italy I had a new appreciation for the kind of real chemistry that can occur when two actors are not just working around each other but truly working off each other, following the lead and dancing around like a couple of professionals.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon once again play slightly antagonistic friends (I refuse to use *that* word) who seem to enjoy each other’s company but who also bear only slightly-veiled contempt and envy for the opportunities and situations of the other. This time the pair are sent by a newspaper on an eating tour of Italy, where they consume lots of pasta and seafood and spend lots of time together. Their conversations are littered with the celebrity impressions they’ve worked so hard on, updates on their respective careers and comments about their personal lives.
As much fun as the impressions are, it’s the conversations the two have about why their own is better than the other’s that’s more interesting to me. Anyone can do a Michael Caine impression, but let’s hear your well-thought out analysis of why you have the voice breaking in just that spot. And the conversations about career and job opportunities are fascinating because Coogan in particular looks like he may snap at any moment. Every time Brydon talks about about anything, especially later in the film when he’s exaggerating about a film part offer, Coogan looks like he’s on the verge of going absolutely ape. It’s barely contained anger that lives alongside a respect and even friendship for Brydon.
What the movie does, though, is give the two of them ample opportunity to play off each other, which brings us back to my original point about what should or shouldn’t qualify as “chemistry” between actors. Coogan and Brydon have the kind of chemistry that comes from not just having worked together before but from both parties operating at a certain level of talent and professionalism. That’s amplified by the fact they improvise so much of what’s on screen. This is what “chemistry” looks like, two (or more) actors actually playing off each other to make the whole more than the sum of its parts.
Chemistry involves a certain amount of give-and-take that only this kind of interaction and performance really puts on display. The Trip To Italy, while certainly not as fresh as the original, has chemistry in spades because these two guys know how to make that happen.
