A Cock and Bull Story (15)
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon,
Shirely Henderson, David Walliams
UK, 2005, 1 hour 32 minutes
Ambitious, intelligent and thoroughly entertaining, this is an extremely funny mix of literary adaptation and inside-showbiz comedy. Michael Winterbottom’s fast and loose approach to filming the unfilmable novel, “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy’ has Steve Coogan not only playing Tristram, but also a funny version of himself as the vain, self-centred star of the film being made. The exaggerated Shandy scenes beautifully capture Sterne’s gleefully anarchic way of telling a tale so that the telling is more important than the tale itself. While the behind-the-scenes stuff pokes gentle fun at the lunacy of the film business so that A Cock and Bull Story successfully both epitomises and parodies the English heritage drama. As funny as it is clever, the inspired pairing of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon is a particular delight.