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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Picturehouse

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story reviews


5.9

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 53 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for language and sexual content

Starring Ronni Ancona, Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Dylan Moran, and David Walliams

A zesty celebration of storytelling and the life that spills out of it, this film tells two stories: that of an 18th Century Englishman Tristram Shandy (Coogan), and that of the hapless 21st Century filmmakers who are adapting the notoriously unfilmable work "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman," with "Steve Coogan" (COogan) in the title role. (Picturehouse)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Michael Winterbottom Frank Cottrell Boyce Laurence Sterne (novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Esq.)
DIRECTED BY:	Michael Winterbottom
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 11, 2006 Theatrical: January 27, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	94 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	UK

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The first great, mind-tickling treat of the new movie year.

100

TV Guide Ken Fox

Rather than adapt the novel per se, Winterbottom has adapted Sterne's hilarious attempts to make the mess of life fit the neat contours of the novel by making a movie about an attempt to make Sterne's chaotic and confusing novel fit the contours of a film.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Because their work is so varied, the director Winterbottom and Boyce, his frequent writer, are only now coming into focus as perhaps the most creative team in British film.

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

If that sounds highbrow and pretentious, it's not. The neat trick of Tristram Shandy is that the whole thing comes off as a lark.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Coogan makes tremendous sport of himself, taking on a role as an adulterous, vain, anxiety-riddled, alcoholic and truly comic creep. Brydon is exquisitely droll as the straight man to this ugly comedian act.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

By not even attempting to follow Sterne to the letter, Winterbottom and Boyce have triumphantly captured his impish creative spirit.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

This is not just a movie-within-a-movie, but a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie, something that sounds unbearably arch but that is swift, funny and surprisingly unpretentious.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

More fun than a company picnic - and a lot more fun than the classic 18th century novel that inspired it - Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story is the first good comedy of 2006.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

The movie biz inside jokes eventually yield to fairly merciless plumbings about the construction of the self, resulting in a kind of philosophical discomfort that's much different from the run-of-the-mill humiliations this sort of thing usually trucks in.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Can a little-read 18th-century literary masterpiece be food-spittingly funny? Can it also include contemporary English actors riffing about their bad teeth, getting drunk and kissing their personal assistants? The answer is yes, as long as you agree that the best way to adapt an original book is with a correspondingly original film.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie's still a wickedly droll put-on. Better yet, beneath the fun lurks a dry and weary sigh at life's refusal to match the tidiness of art.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It's a little bit "Tom Jones," a little bit "Adaptation," a smidge of Monty Python and a dash of Fellini's "861/2," right down to Winterbottom's use of music by the brilliant Fellini composer, Nino Rota.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The result is a movie more concerned with movie-making than with the stuff of Sterne's great book, but a movie that's good for lots of laughs if you share its fondness for actors and for fatuous actors' banter, which I do.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

The trouble with describing a story this complex and digressive is that it's hard to keep it from sounding complicated and hard-to-follow. But for a movie about movies, it's surprisingly humanistic, cheerful and true to life.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Sitting in front of Tristram Shandy for an hour and a half lets us enjoy the fact that, smooth though its making is, the picture is winking at us.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's pretty funny. You don't actually watch it so much as indulge it and admire its cleverness.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Christopher Guest only wishes he could nail a parody/homage as smart and deadpan as this, but while his ensemble improvisation movies are increasingly full of mighty wind, Winterbottom's is consistently smart and silly without becoming caricature.

Slate Dana Stevens

Never loses sight of its mission to be as silly, bawdy, and entertaining as possible.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The actors are in a nice place--poking fun at themselves without spilling into travesty. Fogged by self-absorption, Coogan makes you like him most when he's most dislikable; he has a fool's vulnerability.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

A comedy embedded with secret tips for better, more enjoyable living.

Empire Kim Newman

A successful mix of literary adaptation, meta-fictional discourse and inside-showbiz comedy. Both funny and clever.

Time Richard Corliss

This may seem too inside-cricket for a U.S. audience. And it's true that Cock and Bull is so postpostmodern, it's very nearly postmovie. But it's no less diverting for all that. It would be a shame if the great novel no one has read becomes the terrific film nobody bothers to see.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Quite astonishingly, amidst all the chaos – and there's no better word for Tristram Shandy's inspired, breakneck madness – what emerges is a featherlight, moving meditation on new fatherhood.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

A highly amusing combination period film and mockumentary.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Winterbottom carves his own intimate tale out of the sprawling material, a modest miniature with witty flair and moments of humility.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's really inventive and bizarre and marvelously entertaining.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

It's all a bit precious and preening, but Coogan is marvelous, almost as good as he was in Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People."

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Has about a dozen layers of in-joke, and up to the eighth or ninth layer, they mostly work.

New York Post Kyle Smith

This movie is a proudly esoteric piece of comedy jazz: Freewheeling and low-key at the same time, it'll thrill audiences that know the meaning of the word esoteric but bore others. For a small cult, it seems likely to get funnier the more times you see it.

Variety Leslie Felperin

Cheating flagrantly, helmer Michael Winterbottom has pulled off the trick -- sort of -- with the wickedly playful Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

For all the on-set antics, appropriated Fellini music, and throwaway gags, the movie is most successful when Coogan is pulling faces for the mirror, aimlessly trading Pacino imitations with his sidekick Brydon, or riffing on the color of the latter's teeth.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Long deemed unfilmable, the 18th century novel finds the perfect interpreters in director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This farce eventually runs out of steam, devolving into a protracted docudrama about actor Steve Coogan (who plays the title hero as well as his father), but until then this is a pretty clever piece of jive.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The tone is lighthearted and the performances are effective but, in the end, the feature is so inconsequential as to leave no lasting impression.

The New Yorker David Denby

Unfortunately, it's also maddeningly repetitive, and dependent on the kind of strained English whimsy that leaves your throat sore from laughter that dies in the glottal region.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 53 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

R G gave it a9:
This is one of the fuuniest movies last year and one of the smartest in a very long time. Post modernism has never been embraced so beautifuly in a movie as this. very interesting approach taken by the film makers: Coogan plays himself, Tristram and then his father, as he just turns a father. Great chemistry between Coogan and Rydon. Rydon also plays a caricature of himself and Tristram's uncle. Whatever parallels that are drawn between characters played by characters, the director himself draws by the medium of film on the book, tristram shandy. That a little hard to digest but its def worth seeing, it makes more sense when you are watching it brilliant and winterbottom is def becoming one of the best and most consistent directors.

Amelia S. gave it a4:
This must be the first film that I found bad while Roger Ebert did not. I expected great British comedy from Tristram Shandy - what I got was a film with only several funny moments that was confusing, repetitive, and ultimately, a film of no consequence. Films should leave a viewer thinking, daydreaming, wondering, wanting to be a better person, or questioning themselves. All I felt at the end of this film was "Thank God it's over!"

paddy c. gave it a3:
Ambitious project, pitifully executed, leading to a confused product, despite a potentially great ensemble and a marvellous source.

Jeremy K. gave it a10:
A phenomenal piece of work. This is the artist's hand steadily at play. A collaborative comedy with an underlying current that reminds us of how much facical our world views and sense of self vs others always leaves us wanting. By embracing a post-modern jester of his time (Sterne) and this wonderful age-old satire - Winterbottom, Boyce, Coggan and crew have done just that - created a blazing re-definition of post-modernism and as much as we hate the cliche --- it is unabashedly "ahead of it's time". As bold and awe-inspiring as the film medium has the potential to be. Brilliant.

Steve C. gave it a1:
This film was bloody awful. I'm really shocked it got so many positive reviews, it's really a bad movie.

Martin S. gave it an8:
Steve Coogan is hilarious but Rob Brydon steals the movie.

Ste L. gave it a10:
Simply brilliant. I pity anyone who doesn't find this movie hilarious. Best comedy I've seen all year.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story Picturehouse

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Picturehouse