The landscapes are gorgeous, the banter is clever, and watching the restaurant scenes is great fun. The movie was a bit more smarmy than I was expecting, though that was explained when I read the NYT review and discovered that it had been shown as a short TV series in the UK prior to being reedited for the screen. As best I can tell, much of the point of mass market TV is to make conventional people (who tend to be over-represented among TV viewers) feel good about being conventional, and that is precisely the aim of the smarminess here.
Both of the two main characters are apparently regulars on British TV, and Steve Coogan certainly looked familiar, though I could figure out from his imdb.com listing where I had seen him before. In any event, he is apparently best known for the character of Alan Partridge. Here is an example, with a nod to my friend Peter Dolton, who hails from Newcastle in the land of Geordie (pronounced "Jordy") accents:
Recommended, if you can handle a bit of smarm.
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