Like its title, The Trip is a deceptively simple treat -- the perfect palate-cleanser amid a summer of junk food cinema.

It's many things: a road movie, a buddy film, a mockumentary. For film geeks, there are acrid swipes at the industry (complete with a Ben Stiller dream sequence). For foodies, the film offers prix-fixe meals scattered throughout northern England. Our guides are the travelling twosome of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Coogan plays a preening version of himself, the leading man still licking his wounds after losing a part to Geoffrey Rush. Meanwhile Brydon, a popular BBC panel guest and impressionist, is the model of contentment.

Since Coogan is in a tiff with his American girlfriend, he reluctantly invites Brydon to join him on a job reviewing the gastronomical delights of England's Lake District. It's Midnight Run meets My Dinner with Andre with a dash of Big Night as the pompous star and the man of a thousand voices take their show on the road.

The Trip is the second cinematic venture to star Coogan and Brydon. Previously, they headlined the 2005 pomo period piece Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story. In fact, The Trip is actually a condensed version of a TV series they originally filmed for the BBC.

Though the film adaptation does feel episodic -- with each day structured around various local attractions -- the rambling narrative complements the subtle delights of the film. Largely improvised, director Michael Winterbottom said he approached The Trip with nothing more than a 60-page script that was a list of conversations. He expected his two stars to spend more time chatting about the delicious morsels they sampled, but instead, much of what we get is Rob and Steve riffing on being Rob and Steve.

And what riffing! The audience gets a rolling discourse as the Brit wits gab about everything -- from Abba songs to medieval movies. It's smart and yet often very silly. You may have already seen the clip of Coogan and Brydon's competing Michael Caine impressions, but it was the sequence of slurping Bond villains that had me wiping away tears of laughter.

If there's anything that distinguishes Brydon from Coogan, it's that the comedian and family man seems to have found his place of Zen, while the self-obsessed actor spends much of the film standing in English meadows complaining to his agents. Coogan may be playing a character, but there's a bracing bit of honesty there.

Beneath the bickering and Coogan's constant teasing of Brydon is a portrait of a very honest, middle-aged friendship -- two droll, well-educated men, each trying to carve out a career with a modicum of dignity.

RATING: Beautifully balanced between mirth and melancholy, The Trip rates four-and-a-half chewy bites out of five.

The Trip opens in Toronto on July 1 and rolls out to other Canadian cities throughout the month.

Steve Coogan, left, and Rob Brydon in the British comedy The Trip. (Phil Fisk/Alliance Films)