David Brent: Life On The Road Review - Funny And Melancholic (Just Not All That Original)

Rating: ★★★

Ricky Gervais clearly wants to turn David Brent into Alan Partridge. And who can blame him? Constantly spinning off what was originally a bit-part football pundit parody, Steve Coogan’s Norfolk chat-show-host-cum-DJ has become a bona fide comedy icon, and in 2014 solidified his greatness by doing the seeming impossible and turning in a genuinely amazing British sitcom movie (a sub-genre renowned for its complete and utter ineptness, regardless the quality of the original series).

That’s definitely why we have David Brent: Life On The Road, a new mockumentary that picks up in-universe over a decade after the events of The Office to check in on the former Wernham Hogg office manager’s attempt at making it in the music business (humorously one of the biggest similarities between creator and character is their shared history as a failed musician). Gervais has brought back the singer-songwriter (also rep) several times in recent years for Comic Relief and a musical YouTube series, and the whole thing has rang false with an air of egotism; The Office wasn’t just The Brent Show (one of the underlying jokes is that the boss always thought it was), and every thread of it was wrapped up in the funny, poignant Christmas special.

So naturally the big question any self-respecting fan of The Office has about Life On The Road is whether there's even a point. The answer will depend entirely on how forgiving you’re willing to be of recurring Gervais issues, but - rest assured - it’s more Alpha Papa than Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie.

Importantly, by whatever metric you measure it (many people seem to follow Mark Kermode’s “six laughs and clear” rule), Life On The Road is funny in a very familiar, yet still rather fresh way. Brent is playing up to the cameras even more, so any character escalation feels fitting, and there’s neurotic touches that attest to the writer-director’s attention to detail. He’s reading NME diligently in his hotel room, while one scene has him wearing a leather jacket with nothing underneath for no real reason; it’s not commented on, it’s just a part of his character that’s there. The music is also very strong; the songs themselves are musically rather similar, but there’s some cracking gags in the lyrics, especially the titular number that plays over the opening credits to a purposefully-obviously edited sequence.

If the fact he’s still pulling the same sh*t sounds a little depressing though, that’s also kind of the point. Most of the members of his new office are brutish, with no time for his shtick, and those who do like him increasingly lament why he’s putting himself through an invasive documentary again (it’s implied Brent had a breakdown in the aftermath of The Office). Likewise, his band can’t stand him, forcing him off the tour bus and insisting on separate dressing rooms, culminating in him paying them to just have a pint with him.

Brent is pathetic, more pathetic than even his lowest point in The Office, and when the film makes the flip into nakedly showcasing it, it’s a powerful hit. You realise you’ve been laughing at him as much as anyone, and the whole thing almost becomes a meta-exploration of that “point” question. It's so effective that the movie can’t quite pull you back from that emotional slump, with the final gags ringing a little hollow, but it’s admirable character development all the same.

The main problem with all of this will likely be obvious to anyone who diligently rewatches the show annually so they can see Brent say “f*ck off Finchy” in time for Christmas; we’ve kinda been here before. Everything in the film has a parallel in the original series or special, and as such familiarity eventually makes way for a feeling of unoriginality: new office, same stares; new songs, same crassness; new awkward moments, same awkward laugh; new story, same conclusion. Most of the non-diegetic music is even a riff on Handbags And The Gladrags' instrumentalisation (which packs a punch, but if definitely looking back). When it’s willing to move away from the crutch of The Office’s tried and tested jokes – which Gervais does in part want to do, not bringing back any of the original cast – the film is on top form, it just sadly goes back a little too often with no real thematic purpose.

This "same old story" eye-roll has been a problem with Gervais ever since Extras finished; Life’s Too Short had Warwick Davis playing an unlikeable, Brent-ish version of himself desperate for stardom, and Derek pulled a similar trick but for pathos. There’s moments too that feel oddly reminiscent of classic Partridge, blurring the lines of who Brent is and suggesting that Gervais may have now exhausted his one character.

Add to this some rather strange film-making flubs – the logistics of the documentary format are thrown out of the window almost immediately, with lines of sight not matching with the lack of visible cameras – and a story that spirals into episodic beats – Brent gets a PR (played by Diane Morgan, the comedian behind the marmite Philomena Cunk), which amounts to one photoshoot montage before she’s dropped – and you have an experience that will make you laugh and cry, but doesn’t quite fully come together as an expansive film like Partridge's comparable outing.

Did David Brent need to come back? No, not really. But this is still a worthy return (it is, ultimately, the best we could have hoped for) if you accept its flaws as something inherent to this character who, as the movie itself points out, is older than some of this film's audience. If there's going to be any more, however, the record needs changing.

David Brent: Life On The Road is in UK cinemas from 19th August and will be available on Netflix in the US in the near future.