A Cock and Bull Story (2005)

Release date: 2006-01-20
Country: UK
Language: English
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Production Co: BBC Films, Baby Cow Productions, EM Media
Genre: Comedy
Rating: 6.7/10
Length: 1h 34min

Storyline

Two actors, as their make up is applied, talk about the size of their parts. Then into the film: Laurence Sterne's unfilmable novel, Tristram Shandy, a fictive autobiography wherein the narrator, interrupted constantly, takes the entire story to be born. The film tracks between "Shandy" and behind the scenes. Size matters: parts, egos, shoes, noses. The lead's girlfriend, with their infant son, is up from London for the night, wanting sex; interruptions are constant. Scenes are shot, re-shot, and discarded. The purpose of the project is elusive. Fathers and sons; men and women; cocks and bulls. Life is amorphous, too full and too rich to be captured in one narrative.