Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story

Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story

A Metacritic 80 with four 100 point reviews; the worst review, a 40, comes from David Denby at the New Yorker who writes "One trouble with the current vogue for meta-cinema is that its practioners, such as Winterbottom and Charlie Kaufman, underestimate the extraordinary difficulty of telling a good story straight."

We saw it last night. Given the subject matter and its convoluted story structure, it's hard not to compare it to Adaptation, one of my favorite films of past few years. The story of Tristram Shandy is a story within a story, the making of a movie adaptation of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent. (1759-67).

The short answer: Coogan and Brydon do a great job. I went into it blind. Initially, I felt a little lost, which I found a bit irritating, but it quickly grew on me. Compared to most of the films out there, I'd say it's quite good, but it's hard for me to go beyond that without giving a greater nod to Charlie Kaufman's work.

One critic said it described the film as This is Spinal Tap meets a period piece, which is a description that also helps convey the flavor of the film.