With 'Trip To Greece,' Coogan And Brydon's Odyssey Reaches A Poignant End - NPR

Actor-comedians Steve Coogan (left) and Rob Brydon (right) play coyly fictionalized versions of themselves in The Trip to Greece.

Actor-comedians Steve Coogan (left) and Rob Brydon (right) play coyly fictionalized versions of themselves in The Trip to Greece.

At a time when many of us are staying home, with no plans to travel farther than the nearest grocery store, watching The Trip to Greece might seem like either a lovely escape or an exquisite form of torture.

Viewer envy is par for the course with any good cinematic travelogue, but The Trip to Greece didn't just make me jealous; it left me feeling weirdly bereft.

The actor-comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing coyly fictionalized versions of themselves, have already wined and dined their way through England's Lake District, Italy and Spain.

As usual, Coogan and Brydon live to perform, and their never-ending one-upsmanship is what makes them such enjoyable, if also exhausting, company.

But The Trip to Greece gets at something even more painful and direct: a sense of encroaching mortality.

Coogan and Brydon have said this will be their last Trip and, if so, they've found a perfect, poignant note on which to end