Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution movie review

'Tristram Shandy': Brit wit and general silliness

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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."

Written in the mid-18th century by Laurence Sterne, the book is mostly famous for being one of those famously unread tomes. One of those weighty books many people may have heard of but almost no one has read, unless stuck with it on a syllabus. As one character in the movie explains, it was "a postmodern novel that was post before modernism existed."

Picturehouse

'Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story'

B+

The verdict: High-spirited foolishness.

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Jeremy Northam, James Fleet, Robert Brydon, Dylan Moran, Keeley Hawes
Run time: 94 minutes
Release date: Jan. 27, 2006
Rating: R for language and sexual content.
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Behind the scenes
Austin American-Statesman film writer Chris Garcia interviews director Michael Winterbottom about his wide-ranging movies, including an upcoming ghost story.

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
Trailers require Quicktime

All you really need to know about the book is it's narrated by the title character and it's much less the life than it is the opinions of Shandy, whose stories within stories are such that he isn't even born until the last volume. And is barely out of infancy by the time the whole thing is finally over.

Fittingly, director Michael Winterbottom has made a career out of taking detours. You generally don't expect a filmmaker to follow Thomas Hardy ("Jude") with an anti-war movie ("Welcome to Sarajevo"), or a sci-fi flick ("Code 46") with what might be best described as a piece of soft-core porn ("9 Songs"). Winterbottom's approach is a film within a film — that is, he's made a movie about making a movie out of Sterne's classic. The result is a little like "The French Lieutenant's Woman" by way of Monty Python.

British comedian Steve Coogan, who also starred in Winterbottom's frisky "24 Hour Party People," plays three roles: Tristram Shandy; Shandy's father, Walter, who has some opinions of his own; and an actor named "Steve Coogan," a comically exaggerated version of himself. Similarly, Welsh comic Rob Brydon plays Tristram's Uncle Toby (who received a Hemingway-esque injury at the Siege of Namur) and "Rob Brydon," whose hilarious, ego-ridden offscreen rivalry with Coogan includes such earth-shattering problems as who gets to wear the higher heels.

The movie bounces back and forth from "reel" to "real." One minute, Walter and Toby are strolling about the estate or playing cards while Tristram's mother (Keeley Hawes) screams in agony upstairs as she gives birth to him. The next, we're in a dressing room, with Brydon proudly explaining the pains he took to make his teeth a shade of "not white."

There are the usual on-location indiscretions and gossip. Coogan's flirtation with a pretty, film-savvy production assistant (Naomie Harris) — a fan of Fassbinder, she's also apparently the only one who's actually read the novel — is cut short by the arrival of his girlfriend (Kelly Macdonald) and 6-month-old son. Which leads to one of the best kiss-off lines in recent memory: "You are fantastically attractive," Coogan tells Harris. "And your knowledge of German cinema is second to none."

Gillian Anderson turns up in a good-sport cameo, jumping in at the last minute as an important character who was initially cut so the battle sequences could be longer. Standing in for Winterbottom, Jeremy Northam emulates the director's deadpan style, managing to be both entirely supportive of, and absolutely unavailable to, his cast and crew.

Pretty much a household name in Britain, Coogan is not that well-known in the States — a running gag refers to how his starring role in "Around the World in 80 Days" made zero dent in the American moviegoer's consciousness. So a number of jokes pertaining to his real-life persona are lost in translation. Still, he's a type we both recognize and embrace: In the style of the two Steves, Carell and Colbert, he deals in a mock self-absorbed pomposity that's as outrageous as it is hilarious.

His style, however, is somewhat dryer, as is the film as a whole. For instance, when budget becomes a concern, the producers remind their star of a scene he proposed when he was pitching the movie — that he would drop a hot potato down his trousers. "That's why we gave you the money," they explain.

If Brit wit and the English penchant for general silliness aren't your thing, you may think this "cock and bull" story is exactly that. However, if you like your comedy wordy, bawdy and verging on the absurd, go and have yourself a ball.