Synopsis
Steve Coogan, an arrogant actor with low self-esteem and a complicated love life, is playing the eponymous role in an adaptation of "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" being filmed at a stately home. He constantly spars with actor Rob Brydon, who is playing Uncle Toby and believes his role to be of equal importance to Coogan's.
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Cast
- Steve CooganTristram Shandy / Walter Shandy / Steve Coogan
- Rob BrydonToby Shandy / Rob Brydon
- Keeley HawesElizabeth Shandy / Keeley Hawes
- Shirley HendersonSusannah / Shirley Henderson
- Raymond WaringTrim
- Conal MurphySix-Year-Old Tristam
- Joe WilliamsNine-Year-Old Tristam
- Paul KynmanObadiah
- Mark TandyLondon Doctor
- Dylan MoranDr. Slop
Recommendations
- 100
Entertainment Weekly
The first great, mind-tickling treat of the new movie year. - 90
The New York Times
This is not just a movie-within-a-movie, but a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie, something that sounds unbearably arch but that is swift, funny and surprisingly unpretentious. - 80
Empire
A successful mix of literary adaptation, meta-fictional discourse and inside-showbiz comedy. Both funny and clever. - 80
Time
This may seem too inside-cricket for a U.S. audience. And it's true that Cock and Bull is so postpostmodern, it's very nearly postmovie. But it's no less diverting for all that. It would be a shame if the great novel no one has read becomes the terrific film nobody bothers to see. - 75
The A.V. Club
Has about a dozen layers of in-joke, and up to the eighth or ninth layer, they mostly work. - 75
Rolling Stone
It's really inventive and bizarre and marvelously entertaining. - 75
Christian Science Monitor
It's all a bit precious and preening, but Coogan is marvelous, almost as good as he was in Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People." - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Long deemed unfilmable, the 18th century novel finds the perfect interpreters in director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan.
