A Cock And Bull Story

How do you make a film from a novel that is unfilmable? The answer is - with imagination. Example: Trainspotting and Naked Lunch.

A Cock And Bull Story is NOT the movie of The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Esq., Laurence Sterne's 18th century classic, in the way that Kubrick's Barry Lyndon was an adaptation of Thackeray's novel. It is all about Steve Coogan's insecurities as an actor, a comedian and Alan Partridge.

The result is a film about making a film. The only scenes from the book is the one when Tristram's mother (Keeley Hawes) gives birth to him - it takes ages - with no help from her husband Walter (Coogan plays the adult Tristram AND his father) or the hapless doctor (Dylan Moran), with her sympathetic chamber maid (the ever wonderful Shirley Henderson) in attendance, and episodes involving Toby (Rob Brydon), Walter's brother, who received an unfortunate wound in the nether regions during some battle or other, who spends his spare time - most of his time appears spare - building and playing with a model of the battle in his back garden.

Off camera, the real action takes place, or rather doesn't. Good-hearted banter between Coogan and Brydon is barbed by Coogan's persistent paranoia - he's got a bigger part than me; they've added a love story WITH GILLIAN ANDERSON (swoon) and given it to him, etc - as the crew (producers James Fleet and Ronni Ancona, writer Ian Hart, director Jeremy Northam) debate whether they can afford to shoot a battle sequence, as well as indulging in persistent navel gazing ("Why are we spending a year of our lives making this film?") (Good question, Ed).

Essentially, however, it is Coogan's bluff. He plays himself as a character called Steve Coogan, who is not at all likeable and, surprisingly, unfunny. His girlfriend (Kelly Macdonald) turns up on the set with their baby while he is in mid flirtation with an assistant director ("You are incredibly attractive and your knowledge of German cinema is second to none").

Despite the film's mild obsession with the male member, it is fragmented like a dropped stitch and yet contains enough entertaining moments and individual performances to justify its existence (just). Considering the Coogan-as-Coogan central premise and co-writer/director Michael Winterbottom's rep amongst aficionados of indie Brit flicks, an accusation of self-indulgence might not go amiss.