Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Very different, and very funny
Forget most of what you've read about this movie. It is not postmodern, nor "Pythonesqe", nor any of the other adjectives I've read in user reviews. What it is is a very intelligent, and very different piece of filmmaking that is quite unlike anything you've ever seen. If I had to compare it to any movie in recent history, I'd say it's a bit like "Adaptation", but that film was crude and heavy handed in comparison to "Tristram Shandy". It's also a bit like "This Is Spinal Tap" in the deadpan way it presents some very silly parody.

Imagine a Merchant-Ivory costume drama in which the principal actor suddenly stops, turns to the camera, and tells a Groucho Marx story, And imagine that part way through an increasingly confusing narrative, that keeps movinng forward and back, in fits and starts, the camera abruptly pulls back, and we see a film being made.

From that point on, "Tristram" becomes the story of the attempt to make a film from a very difficult to film...

Inspired modern classic
Brilliant modern take on an early novel. The director captures the premise of the novel: that life is chaos by setting the film in the past and present at once. Brilliant concept and execution. I didn't know what to expect, but thoroughly enjoyed the film and it's cleverness, it's inspired direction and editing and some stellar performances. A joy to watch.

"It was post-modern before there was a modern to be post about!"
To fully appreciate Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, most viewers who haven't read the famous Laurence Stern novel upon which the film is loosely based, will at least need to have an idea of its concept. But I cannot envisage getting into this film with no foreknowledge of both the novel and Steve Coogan's irreverent brand of comedy.

The tone is light-hearted and witty, and the performances are very good, and the period induced first half is an absolute riot, but Michael Winterbottom's latest film might be a bit elitist for most, depending a little too much on parallels to the classic book's structure and the fashionable imprint of Coogan's celebrity. It all presupposes that you're part of the "in" club and familiar with the humor to actually get the joke.

Anyway, for those of us who appreciate films that impertinently skewer the classics of English Literature the Tristram Shandy is mostly a real treat. The film begins with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in...

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