There is some actual Tristam Shandy from the novel in the movie, but really the movie is about the making of the movie. The actors Coogan and Brydon fight and tease each other continually throughout. The movie opens with Brydon going on and on about his teeth and his appearance to Coogan, and I thought, how am I going to get through the rest of this? If hadn't been for the $10.75 and the cold outside, I would have gotten up and left. Coogan and Brydon are just like actors I have known in real life, narcissistic and not much interested in the intellect. In the last scene they were doing the same thing and I was laughing and unable to stop, although they still irritated me. Brydon was going on and on about how he takes from Streisand and Pacino and imitates both of them. Brydon also imitates Coogan. Apparently Coogan is much more of a star than Brydon and Brydon is jealous of him, but as I don't watch British TV I'm not really sure if this was all made up for the film.
Coogan has a minor love interest, Jenny, who is black and another, more serious girlfriend also named Jenny (white), who visits the hotel the movie is using as a base, with her baby by Coogan. He neglects both of them. The first Jenny is a sort of gofer who is forced to continually interact with Coogan even after meeting her rival, and is held to be ridiculous because she admires Fassbinder films. Her interest in Coogan remains even after she realized the position Coogan has put her in with the second Jenny. As an audience member I felt a little like Jenny, laughing despite myself, as if I had a hopeless crush on some jerk, and mocked by the film for expecting it to have some intellectual content. But yet it was an experience well worth the price of admission. Coogan is held by Brydon to have lost his libido, but the film delivers.
What it delivers I'm not exactly sure.
Coogan has a minor love interest, Jenny, who is black and another, more serious girlfriend also named Jenny (white), who visits the hotel the movie is using as a base, with her baby by Coogan. He neglects both of them. The first Jenny is a sort of gofer who is forced to continually interact with Coogan even after meeting her rival, and is held to be ridiculous because she admires Fassbinder films. Her interest in Coogan remains even after she realized the position Coogan has put her in with the second Jenny. As an audience member I felt a little like Jenny, laughing despite myself, as if I had a hopeless crush on some jerk, and mocked by the film for expecting it to have some intellectual content. But yet it was an experience well worth the price of admission. Coogan is held by Brydon to have lost his libido, but the film delivers.
What it delivers I'm not exactly sure.