A Cock and Bull Story (2005) on Netflix
One actor plays Tristram Shandy in a film of an 18th-century novel. His co-star, cast as Uncle Toby, insists his part matters just as much. The shoot keeps being interrupted.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.7/1013,712 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Work is underway at a stately home on a screen adaptation of an 18th-century novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and the man in the title part is an arrogant actor with a shaky sense of his own worth and a tangled love life. The performer cast as Uncle Toby calls himself the co-lead and treats his role as equal in weight, and the two men needle each other between takes. The book they are adapting offers no tidy path, since its narrator is forever interrupted. Takes are filmed, then filmed again and discarded. The leading man's girlfriend comes up from London with their baby son for the night.
Cast
- Conal Murphyas Young Tristram Shandy - Age 6
- Joe Williamsas Young Tristram Shandy - Age 9
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about A Cock and Bull Story (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The fictionalized Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon who appeared in A Cock and Bull Story returned as the central characters of Michael Winterbottom's 2010 BBC series The Trip and its sequels.
- The soundtrack leans on Nino Rota's score for Federico Fellini's 8½, another film about the making of a film; Michael Nyman, composer of The Draughtsman's Contract, wrote a new arrangement of the Handel Sarabande, and that film's tracks served as a temp track.
- Stephen Fry, who plays Parson Yorick, also appears in A Cock and Bull Story as Patrick, a caricatured version of the actual curator at Shandy Hall; the DVD extras include a scene of Fry talking with the curator he portrays.
