Hailed as one of the best films shown at the 2005 New York Film Festival (and the year) it took me almost a year and a half to see it. Now that I have a wave of disappointment rolls in. Don't get me wrong this is a funny movie but the love and adulation poured at the feet of this film at the film festival seems more directed at the idea of the film rather than the film itself.
The movie is essentially a film about the making of a film based on Tristram Shandy, an unfilmable novel (which I doubt many people know as anything other than by reputation). After an opening bit with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in the makeup chair the film switches to 25 minutes of uninterrupted adaptation from the book. Absolutely hysterical and spot on (with Dylan Moran a pure delight as a doctor with his stereotypical personality- would you want him to deliver your baby?).I think Michael Winterbottom and crew make a good run at proving that in the right hands the book could be filmed.
Then suddenly the film shifts gears and we are pulled back into the film-making experience as the fourth wall is broken and the film becomes a film about the making of the film. It was here that the film broke down for me. Certainly a good deal of it is funny in a very dry sort of way, but more often than not they are funny in a cerebral sort of way and not a laugh out loud sort of way. While I don't mind admiring a joke I'd rather laugh at it. Much of the last two thirds were like that for me, I admired what it was trying to do, but I didn't really have anything other than an intellectual experience. (I also was not thrilled that a movie this intelligent often went in directions that were very predictable. Maybe I've seen one too many behind the scenes comedies) This isn't to say that the movie is bad, its not. Its a very good little film. Its just not the be all and end all that many reviewers said it would be. Maybe a second viewing will improve it.
recommended for those who like dry British humor or very clever movies that aren't as funny as they think they are.
The movie is essentially a film about the making of a film based on Tristram Shandy, an unfilmable novel (which I doubt many people know as anything other than by reputation). After an opening bit with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in the makeup chair the film switches to 25 minutes of uninterrupted adaptation from the book. Absolutely hysterical and spot on (with Dylan Moran a pure delight as a doctor with his stereotypical personality- would you want him to deliver your baby?).I think Michael Winterbottom and crew make a good run at proving that in the right hands the book could be filmed.
Then suddenly the film shifts gears and we are pulled back into the film-making experience as the fourth wall is broken and the film becomes a film about the making of the film. It was here that the film broke down for me. Certainly a good deal of it is funny in a very dry sort of way, but more often than not they are funny in a cerebral sort of way and not a laugh out loud sort of way. While I don't mind admiring a joke I'd rather laugh at it. Much of the last two thirds were like that for me, I admired what it was trying to do, but I didn't really have anything other than an intellectual experience. (I also was not thrilled that a movie this intelligent often went in directions that were very predictable. Maybe I've seen one too many behind the scenes comedies) This isn't to say that the movie is bad, its not. Its a very good little film. Its just not the be all and end all that many reviewers said it would be. Maybe a second viewing will improve it.
recommended for those who like dry British humor or very clever movies that aren't as funny as they think they are.