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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 54 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
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:
Theatrical: January 27, 2006
DVD: July 11, 2006
Running Time: 94 minutes, Color
Origin: UK
Summary
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)
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What The Critics Said
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...
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The first great, mind-tickling treat of the new movie year.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
By not even attempting to follow Sterne to the letter, Winterbottom and Boyce have triumphantly captured his impish creative spirit.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's pretty funny. You don't actually watch it so much as indulge it and admire its cleverness.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Never loses sight of its mission to be as silly, bawdy, and entertaining as possible.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
A comedy embedded with secret tips for better, more enjoyable living.
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
A successful mix of literary adaptation, meta-fictional discourse and inside-showbiz comedy. Both funny and clever.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
A highly amusing combination period film and mockumentary.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's really inventive and bizarre and marvelously entertaining.
Read Full Review >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."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
Long deemed unfilmable, the 18th century novel finds the perfect interpreters in director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.9 (out of 10) based on 54 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.
