A Cock and Bull Story (2005)

A Cock and Bull Story: Directed by Michael Winterbottom. With Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson. Director Michael Winterbottom (Northam) attempts to shoot the adaptation of Laurence Sterne’s essentially unfilmable novel, “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.”

“The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy was published in the mid 1750s and can be described as postmodern before the term was invented.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe book is a ramble and regarded as unfilmable.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eEnter Frank Cottrell Boyce and Michael Winterbottom. They are assisted by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan who adapted the book as a film within a film of the book.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnyone familiar with the BBC series The Trip, also directed by Winterbottom and starring Brydon and Coogan as versions of themselves will be acquainted with the set up.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThey both tease, spar, cajole each other and do impressions.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYou have scenes relating to the birth of Tristram Shandy and some of it is comical and amusing. You have a battle scene with literally tens of people and suddenly the filmmakers manage to get Gillian Anderson on board as Widow Wadman which leads to an increased budgetu003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs the film goes on, Cooganu0026#39;s personal life comes under scrutiny with a newspaper hack chasing him about a kiss and tell story. Madchester TV stalwart and music mogul Tony Wilson appears as himself giving a testy interview to Coogan. Stephen Fry later drops by as a know it all.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBy the latter part of the film it just fizzles out, as if the actual writer and director ran out of gas and this viewer lost interest.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMaybe there was a good reason why the novel was unfilmable.”