Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Grade: A

How do you film a supposedly unfilmable novel? In the case of Michael Winterbottom’s Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, you don’t – or, to put it more precisely, you film what it might be like to attempt to film it. Sound complicated? – It is. But don’t presume it reeks of pretentious artiness – that it most certainly does not.

Simply put, the film is wildly inventive, endlessly perplexing and easily the funniest movie I’ve seen all year – a postmodern masterpiece that toys with its own structure, chronology and much like Adaptation before it, redefines what it means to be, well, an adaptation.

I’ve never read the novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen but I think it’s safe to say that I may not need to in order to appreciate this film since it isn’t a straight adaptation of the novel, but a endless interplay between reality and fiction more concerned with the difficulty of its assembly than its actual commencement, complete with hesitations, repetitions and endless tangents into material that may or may not relevantly pertain to the film’s core purpose. Then again, my understanding of the book’s style of narration with its inexhaustible digressions, unfinished anecdotes and blank pages suggests that more than any other adaptation in the history of cinema, Tristram Shandy most closely embodies the spirit of its source material (when I finally do get around to reading it, maybe I can confirm this).

Regardless, allow me to provide a fitting example of the film’s complicated structure and the genius that it exemplifies. Early in the film, during the first moment when we truly step outside the narration proper to observe the supposed behind-the-scenes goings-on, actor Steve Coogan (who plays both the role of Tristram Shandy and Tristram’s father in addition to, in an ultra meta sense, actor Steve Coogan as seen through the film’s screenplay) is given a demonstration of one of the various props in the film – a giant plastic womb with a clear view window inside which he shall act out a scene involving the still unborn Tristram moments before his conception.

The scene of the device’s demonstration itself is the most comically piercing moment in the film, but it also suggests that since the prop has been introduced, it follows that it must be incorporated somehow later in the narration. However, this notion is confounded by the time and place in which it finally does materialize, since it is introduced in a dream sequence meant to deal with Coogan’s own inadequacy on the set of the film. Why is this so complicated? Well, since the dream supposedly takes place within the same reality that exists outside the realm of the narrative proper, the mere fact that the stagehands would show him a prop that would later appear within the actor’s, not the character’s, psyche calls into question upon which level of reality the actors exist. In a sense, the cast and crew are constructing both the film and their lives, but they are not aware that what they contribute to one reality, affects their reality as well.

Of course, the true reality is that they take place behind two sets of cameras, one of which they are aware, one of which they are not. It somehow feels simple enough, and it flows so effortlessly that it mesmerizes the viewer and lulls them into accepting both realities, making it impossible to discern from one or another, including those moments when the actors allegedly play themselves.

I’m reminded of the role of John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. Although he acted as himself in the film, he approached it with a sort of detachment that suggested he observed the role as a self-parody, maybe even as a critique of what he suspected the general public might misconstrue him as. Likewise, Steve Coogan’s performance, which is not a beat off perfection, shows the actor as a self-absorbed, insecure, jealous unfaithful man. Is the real Steve Coogan this type of person? I doubt it, otherwise, why would he admit the having sex with a lap dancer on film?

I cannot recommend this film enough. If you’re a fan of British humor (especially the type of humor as seen in The Office), in addition to the experimental style of Michel Gondry or the elaborate screenplays of Charlie Kaufman then you cannot afford to miss it. I know I said the same thing about both Bubble and United 93 but as of right now I have no qualms about listing this film as my favorite so far this year.