Review of A Cock and Bull Story (2005) by Amber B — 29 Apr 2008

I thought that the portions of the movie that dealt with the book adapted it very nicely. They did change a couple of the more obscure jokes to ones that will register more readily with a modern audience, but they did it quite well in my opinion.

However, I thought that much too much time was spent on the modern part of the story, on characters that I did not care for. The idea was a good one: show the filmmakers' difficulty in portraying Tristram Shandy on screen, but I would have preferred to see only that, and not their irrelevant personal lives. I realize that Tristram Shandy is a novel with many, many irrelevancies, but they reveal the character of Tristram Shandy (and his family). I think a focus on the novel would have worked well, with a mad crash into modern times, like in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" or "Blazing Saddles.".

Instead, I left with an odd sensation both of having seen too much (of the actors) and too little (of Tristram Shandy).