Film: A Cock and Bull Story

This was another free preview courtesy of the Daily Telegraph movie monthly offer, which I saw on Tuesday a mere 4 days after last week's unmemorable 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. It stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon and tells the making of a film based on the supposedly unfilmable book 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' by Laurence Stern, which was written in 1760. The book can be read online.

As a film it was very funny but lacked structure, however having read a little about the novel online it's not at all surprising as the book does not have a true beginning, middle, and end as you would normally expect. At times the film felt a bit like the Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon show, which in the end was no bad thing. Their conversation over the closing credits lifted the film from its unsatisfactory ending. As for the rest of the cast; Keeley Hawes spent most of her screen time screaming in child-birth agony. Gillian Anderson was hardly in it at all, which was not only disappointing for me but for her too as she stated at the end of the film. Caz pointed out to me that the woman playing Gillian's American agent was in fact Sara Stewart (Kim's mum Stella in 'Sugar Rush'), although you wouldn't know from looking at the IMDB as she's not credited. I'll have to fix that! Caz found the film quite hilarious and had to reign in her laughter when she realised that often she was the only one laughing.

So, in summation it was more of a miss than a hit but considering the origin it's not surprising really. I gave it 5/10 at the IMDB. It was an enjoyable hour and a half but once again it's another free film that I'm glad I didn't have to pay to see or I would have felt a little cheated.