Tristam Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story

It seems like an unlikely subject - especially since it was deemed one of the most impossible to film novels - but director Michael Winterbottom has endeavored the challenge of adapting Laurence Sterne's 18th century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Using the impossibility of the concept as the overarching device, the film is cast as a satire - a making of the movie, movie. Characters ebb and flow. The lines between acting and reality begin to blur. The absurdities of both worlds intermesh.

Steve Coogan (I'm Alan Partridge, 24 Hour Party People) hilariously plays the title role, and Shandy's father Walter - seamlessly addressing the camera as well as characters in his scene. All the while, he's embattled with trumping the even more funny Rob Brydon (and his character, Walter's brother Toby) with every little thing imaginable. Meanwhile Nino Rota's score to Fellini's 8 1/2 propels the film forward like a crazy train destined to run off the tracks. From the opening sequence to the final frame of the credits, this is British humor at its finest. A wild ride, it almost makes me want to read the book. Almost.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars