A Cock And Bull Story (2005)

The supposedly unfilmable story comes to life. Based on Lawrence Stern's 18th century novel Tristram Shandy the film tries hard to accommodate the waywardness of the novel and nearly accomplishes it, but it has to severly alter things to gain the feeling of the book. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon take the leads, Brydon taking the comedy honours outshining Coogan which has a strange mirror on the film. In the film they show you not only the film, but the fictitious behind of scenes goings-on with Coogan, as a fictitious Coogan, worrying about being outshone by Brydon, and it happens in the real film. Whether it is a decent attempt to film the novel is a question that really shouldn't be taken too seriously and you should just enjoy the film for what it is - an amusing romp about the trials and tribulations about making a film. A sort of English version of Truffaut's Day For Night. It's nothing to get excited about but an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour and a half.