Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand will match comic wits in the upcoming comedy “The Guilt Trip,” and the first trailer promises a surprisingly low-key comic adventure.
Rogen plays a traveling salesman who reluctantly invites his overbearing but well-meaning mother (Streisand, of course) along on an 8-day cross-country road trip, during which he tries to help her kickstart her love life. Along the way, they deal with some typical road movie pitfalls (GPS, old people driving, hitchhikers) and gain some mother-son time at the Grand Canyon, a steakhouse and a strip club.
It appears to be a lot less broad that you’d expect, with the two leads mostly just riffing on the awkwardness of the situation instead of getting into the kind of over-the-top experiences you’d see in a “Vacation” movie or “The Hangover.” It looks a lot less edgy than the usual Rogen comedy (“Superbad,” “Knocked Up,” and so forth), at times even appearing to be downright family-friendly — except for the strippers and the rape joke.
Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal,” “27 Dresses”) directed. “Parks and Recreations'” Adam Scott, “Community’s” Danny Pudi, Nora Dunn and Yvonne Strahovski co-star, but barely register in the trailer; this appears to be Rogen’s and Babs’ show through-and-through.
“The Guilt Trip” opens nationwide December 25.
What do you think of the trailer?