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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon add madcap, knowing performances to the mix, and the result is a fun, postmodern romp.
All Critics (129) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (115) | Rotten (14) | DVD (5)
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. May 12, 2006 | Full Review…
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.
David Edelstein
[Michael Winterbottom's] goofy, messy version of Tristram Shandy puts the Fellini back in 'Fellini-esque.' Mar 10, 2006 | Rating: 4/5
[Michael Winterbottom's] goofy, messy version of Tristram Shandy puts the Fellini back in 'Fellini-esque.'
Roger Moore
A wildly imaginative foray into spirited comic anarchy. Mar 10, 2006 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
A wildly imaginative foray into spirited comic anarchy.
Connie Ogle
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. Mar 10, 2006 | Rating: B | Full Review…
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.
Tom Long
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. Mar 10, 2006 | Rating: 3/4
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.
Terry Lawson
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. Mar 2, 2006 | Rating: B+
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.
Eleanor Ringel Cater
A Cock and Bull Story is an admirable effort, but an ultimately disappointing one. Jan 12, 2019 | Rating: 6/10 | Full Review…
A Cock and Bull Story is an admirable effort, but an ultimately disappointing one.
Nathanael Hood
... it's a great deal of sheer fun, showcasing Coogan as one of the best comic actors working today. Mar 5, 2018 | Full Review…
... it's a great deal of sheer fun, showcasing Coogan as one of the best comic actors working today.
Steve Erickson
Coogan may be game and there are plenty of nods to assorted sexploits, but this riffing on his caddish public image was done a lot more amusingly and a lot less smugly in a 10-minute skit in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. Jan 16, 2018 | Full Review…
Coogan may be game and there are plenty of nods to assorted sexploits, but this riffing on his caddish public image was done a lot more amusingly and a lot less smugly in a 10-minute skit in Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes.
Catherine Shoard
Films where you suddenly hear yourself laughing, where you leave the theatre a little weakened by the violence of your own hilarity, are extremely rare. Aug 23, 2017 | Full Review…
Films where you suddenly hear yourself laughing, where you leave the theatre a little weakened by the violence of your own hilarity, are extremely rare.
Dorothy Woodend
Stands alongside -- if not above -- Adaptation as one of the best films about the process. Nov 7, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
Stands alongside -- if not above -- Adaptation as one of the best films about the process.
Luke Goodsell
A typically rambling, freewheeling effort from Michael Winterbottom... Jun 22, 2011 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…
A typically rambling, freewheeling effort from Michael Winterbottom...
David Nusair
'Tristram Shandy' is a great deal less clever than it thinks it is.
Super Reviewer
Having seen and fell in love with The Trip first, it was fun to spend more time with characters that I had come to know and love. On top of being a smart and layered film, Coogan and Brydon continue to give the audience their patented witty passive-aggressive banter. While I did not find myself sick with laughter in the same ways as i was with The Trip, it is still very funny. If you love the characters in all of their humor and misery, then this film is for you.
When did British comedy become boring? My guess. Sometime around this film's release. There's an average human drama subplot, but the rest is pretty stuck up [their own a***] comedy.
your mileage may vary according to your taste in 18th century literature, british comedy and/or the post-modern film stylings of michael winterbottom/steve coogan. i enjoyed it very much, tho it's messy and not everything works. one clever bit, amongst many clever bits, was the score's subtly referencing everything from barry lyndon to 8 1/2, perhaps an allusion to the many charges of plagiarism against the novel
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