Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 123
Fresh: 111 | Rotten: 12
Though Laurence Sterne's novel was considered more or less impossible to successfully adapt to film, director Michael Winterbottom has done it in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, by making movie about the making of the movie. Stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon add madcap, knowing performances to the mix, and the result is a fun, postmodern romp, before there was any modern romp to post.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 2
Though Laurence Sterne's novel was considered more or less impossible to successfully adapt to film, director Michael Winterbottom has done it in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, by making movie about the making of the movie. Stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon add madcap, knowing performances to the mix, and the result is a fun, postmodern romp, before there was any modern romp to post.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 22,295
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Movie Info
A group of actors and filmmakers set out to adapt an "unfilmable" classic novel -- but find that their own petty concerns get in the way -- in this satirical comedy. Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman told the story of its priggish title character from the moment of conception onward, with a bevy of digressions, distractions, and unfinished anecdotes. In adapting the work for the screen, director Michael Winterbottom chose to stay true to its
Cast
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Steve Coogan
Tristram Shandy/Walter ... -
Rob Brydon
Toby Shandy/Rob Brydon -
Raymond Waring
Corporal Trim -
Dylan Moran
Dr. Slop/Dylan Moran -
Keeley Hawes
Elizabeth Shandy/Keeley... -
Gillian Anderson
Widow Wadman/Gillian An... -
Naomie Harris
Jennie -
Kelly Macdonald
Jenny -
Jeremy Northam
Mark -
James Fleet
Simon -
Mark Williams
Ingoldsby -
Shirley Henderson
Susannah/Shirley Hender... -
Ian Hart
Joe -
Kieran O'Brien
Gary -
Stephen Fry
Patrick Curator/Parson ... -
Anthony H. Wilson
TV Interviewer -
Roger Allam
Adrian -
Greg Wise
Greg -
Elizabeth Berrington
Debbie -
David Walliams
Parson -
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Ronni Ancona
Anita -
Ashley Jensen
Lindsey
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All Critics (131) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (114) | Rotten (12) | DVD (10)
Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story is a hall of mirrors that doesn't tease the brain (it's easier to watch than to read about) so much as goose it into submission.
Top Critic[Michael Winterbottom's] goofy, messy version of Tristram Shandy puts the Fellini back in 'Fellini-esque.'
A wildly imaginative foray into spirited comic anarchy.
A Cock and Bull Story is a grand giggle of a film, well worth your time and money and a game well played for the audience.
A hilariously clever picture about the making of a movie that no one will have the slightest interest in. For an experiment about an experiment, it's entirely too much fun.
Probably the best-known but-I-digress novel in English literature, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, has inspired Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, surely the best but-I-digress movie this side of Adaptation.
Stands alongside -- if not above -- Adaptation as one of the best films about the process.
A typically rambling, freewheeling effort from Michael Winterbottom...
Director Michael Winterbottom may not have proved that you can film this unfilmable book, but he definitely proved he can film a funny movie about trying to film it.
Coogan and Brydon make a beautiful squabbling couple
Equal parts literature and lunacy.
The movie is witty, engaging, and above all, intelligent, even if the story is all cock and bull.
For those who can appreciate the movie's ironic, self-referential nature, this is a thoroughly engaging, near-brilliant comedy.
If you go into this movie expecting a traditional narrative tale, you may get discouraged. You have to throw away your expectations and sit back and wait to see what happens ... if anything.
A successful mix of literary adaptation, meta-fictional discourse and inside-showbiz comedy. Both funny and clever.
[O]ne of the cleverest deconstructions and modernizations of a work of classic literature cinema has ever achieved...
...Preposterously funny, perpetually inventive, implausibly successful...
Audience Reviews for Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
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Foreign Titles
- A Cock and Bull Story (UK)
