As one character in this sharp, playful feature notes, Laurence Sterne's "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" managed to be postmodern while predating modernism. Long deemed unfilmable, the 18th century novel finds the perfect interpreters in director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan, reteaming after 2002's "24 Hour Party People".
"A Cock and Bull Story" has the right wiseass sensibility to approximate the tangents and asides that constitute the original opus as well as its famous visual devices -- rows of asterisks, pages blacked-out or left blank. The film chronicles the making of a film of "Tristram Shandy", with cast and crew encamped at an English country estate, and first-time scripter Martin Hardy nimbly uses the setup to interweave layers of significance in a story about storytelling. A return to form for Winterbottom after the dull sex-and-music experimentation of "9 Songs", this engaging romp, which screens Thursday at AFI Fest, should find a welcoming reception upon limited release in January.
In one of the best episodes in Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes", Coogan showed that he excels at playing a careerist actor named Steve Coogan, whose gaze flashes with the boredom, impatience and fear of a man constantly checking himself on the status meter. Here, he plays a more ingenuous and never cliched version of a self-absorbed thespian. On top of dealing with the period film's increasingly apparent script problems, Coogan, who has the title role, must fend off the professional jealousy of Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon), in the more colorful part of Tristram's uncle Toby. To the frustration of the costume designer, frantic negotiations ensue over the proper heel height for their respective characters' shoes.
On the evidence of disastrous dailies, the film's director (Jeremy Northam) and screenwriter (Ian Hart) return to the source material to rethink what gets left out of the sprawling saga and what gets added back in -- as in the last-minute addition to the cast of Gillian Anderson as Widow Wadman, Toby's love interest. The flirtation between Coogan and a cinephile production assistant (Naomie Harris) gets serious, even while his girlfriend (Kelly Macdonald) visits the set with their infant son. Storytelling is both necessary and arbitrary, "Tristram Shandy" says, and Winterbottom's film offers a fresh look at the intense insularity of putting on a show.
"A Cock and Bull Story" has the right wiseass sensibility to approximate the tangents and asides that constitute the original opus as well as its famous visual devices -- rows of asterisks, pages blacked-out or left blank. The film chronicles the making of a film of "Tristram Shandy", with cast and crew encamped at an English country estate, and first-time scripter Martin Hardy nimbly uses the setup to interweave layers of significance in a story about storytelling. A return to form for Winterbottom after the dull sex-and-music experimentation of "9 Songs", this engaging romp, which screens Thursday at AFI Fest, should find a welcoming reception upon limited release in January.
In one of the best episodes in Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes", Coogan showed that he excels at playing a careerist actor named Steve Coogan, whose gaze flashes with the boredom, impatience and fear of a man constantly checking himself on the status meter. Here, he plays a more ingenuous and never cliched version of a self-absorbed thespian. On top of dealing with the period film's increasingly apparent script problems, Coogan, who has the title role, must fend off the professional jealousy of Rob Brydon (Rob Brydon), in the more colorful part of Tristram's uncle Toby. To the frustration of the costume designer, frantic negotiations ensue over the proper heel height for their respective characters' shoes.
On the evidence of disastrous dailies, the film's director (Jeremy Northam) and screenwriter (Ian Hart) return to the source material to rethink what gets left out of the sprawling saga and what gets added back in -- as in the last-minute addition to the cast of Gillian Anderson as Widow Wadman, Toby's love interest. The flirtation between Coogan and a cinephile production assistant (Naomie Harris) gets serious, even while his girlfriend (Kelly Macdonald) visits the set with their infant son. Storytelling is both necessary and arbitrary, "Tristram Shandy" says, and Winterbottom's film offers a fresh look at the intense insularity of putting on a show.
- 11/8/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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