More movie-biz spoof than postmodern adaptation of the novel, but Winterbottom's film miraculously succeeds in doing both goals a degree of justice.
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02/17/06
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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006)
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:106
Rotten:11
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: 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.
Theatrical Release:Jan 27, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $1,110,155
Synopsis: Barely stopping to breathe between productions, outrageously prolific director Michael Winterbottom follows his graphically intimate 9 SONGS with the raucously entertaining TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK... [More]
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson
Director: Michael Winterbottom
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Reviews for Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Like The French Lieutenant's Woman, it's as much commentary as adaptation, but with a more playful approach and an understated, typically British sense of humor.
02/16/06
It's pretty funny. You don't actually watch it so much as indulge it and admire its cleverness.
02/16/06
Top CriticIt wonderfully evokes the life on a movie set, which for a few weeks or months creates its own closed society.
02/16/06
Top CriticWhat a treat! ... By the end, you have so grown to love the characters that you're quite sorry to have to bid them adieu.
02/16/06
A bold and imaginative piece of filmmaking that also happens to be delightfully droll...a grand, goofy entertainment in the true Sterne mold.
02/12/06
...I don't think there will be a funnier, smarter and wiser comedy released this year.
02/11/06
Even if you never get up to speed on half of what this movie tosses about, the half you do get should keep you laughing all the way to the library.
02/10/06
"Tristram Shandy: A **** and Bull Story" is an amusing toss off that is full of tongue-in-cheek British humor for the film buffs.
02/10/06
...[very funny, and] on occasion, mysteriously, genuinely moving.
02/10/06
A film as inspired as its source.
02/10/06
For a movie about movies, it's surprisingly humanistic, cheerful and true to life.
02/09/06
Top CriticUnderneath the movie’s tricky hall-of-mirrors surface lies a warm, delicate and, yes, distinctly Shandy-esque portrait of the struggle of creation.
02/09/06
You would think [the] book would be unfilmable, and you'd be right. But that didn't stop [director] Michael Winterbottom from taking it on.
02/07/06
One trouble with the current vogue for meta-cinema is that its practioners, such as Winterbottom and Charlie Kaufman, underestimate the extraordinary difficulty of telling a good story straight.
02/07/06
Top CriticOrder, movement, sense: all become arbitrary, means by which the teller conveys and creates meaning.
02/05/06
This try to film what's been called an unfilmable book reminds me of the old ditty: They all said it couldn't be done; They all said he couldn't do it; So he tackled the job that couldn't be done; And, by George, he couldn't do it.
02/05/06
Trying to enumerate everything that's good about this movie could prove as labyrinthine a task as Tristram's storytelling itself.
02/04/06
Blithe, brisk, and bouncy
02/03/06
Given the strength of the talent and material here, it's still a workable compromise for fans -- and a confusion Tristram himself would understand.
02/02/06
Top CriticLatest News for Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
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