<!-- google_ad_section_start -->
<!-- if there is a query term, show widget --> <!-- code re-engineered from partners/us/search_art_main -->

<!-- no query term? print empty widget -->

What a piece of work is Tristram Shandy. His much grander and formal intended first name was truncated at birth when it was miscommunicated to the vicar by the same clumsy nanny who, a few years later, accidentally trimmed a certain piece of his anatomy under circumstances too deliciously indelicate to explain. These incidents became symbolic of a life whose details proved to be beyond its owner's grasp, control and understanding.

The conclusion? Life is chaotic and amorphous, and so is Michael Winterbottom's film "Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story" and the 18th-century novel it rode in on.

The novel, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy" by Laurence Sterne, was widely considered unfilmmable, and Winterbottom sets out to prove it, using its convoluted maneuverings as the foundation for his own cockeyed take on a text that is described by one character in the film as being postmodern before there was any modernism.

Winterbottom's version of things is a tail-eating beast in which the actors play actors who are playing characters from the book as well as themselves.

As characters from the book, they break down the fourth wall and talk to the camera. When not playing those characters, they play versions of their offstage selves in a backstage reality that is no less artificial.

For instance, Steve Coogan who starred in Winterbottom's "24 Hour Party People" plays the title character and his father. He also plays a flustered and neurotic actor named Steve Coogan, whose girlfriend, played by Kelly Macdonald, is visiting with their newborn son. He flirts with his production assistant; fends off a tabloid reporter; feuds with his co-star, played by Rob Brydon; has drinks with the producers, who decide to restore a romantic subplot and hire Gillian Anderson, who then appears just like that; ponders whether he has the nose of a character actor or a leading man; and records audio commentary for the DVD.

An actor, Jeremy Northam, even plays the unnamed director, presumably Winterbottom. The result, which is great fun, is the upstairs / downstairs romp of "Gosford Park" on a Moebius staircase.

Winterbottom is a prolific and inventive but usually deadly serious filmmaker. His last film was the hard-core sex movie "9 Songs," and his recent works include the Orwellian romance "Code 46" and "In This World," a stunning dramatic vrit about illegal immigration.

"Tristram Shandy" shows he has a sense of humor as well. The film's playful, subversive and selectively self-referential sensibility is equal parts blarney and bluster, and has the endearing quality of a tall tale told tongue in cheek.

If all the world's a stage, art and life are indistinguishable. But even if not, the art of life remains something worth examining.

Tristram Shandy:

A Cock & Bull Story ***

Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Gillian Anderson, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Dylan Moran, Jeremy Northam, Naomie Harris, Kelly Macdonald, Stephen Fry

Behind the scenes: Produced by Andrew Eaton. Written by Martin Hardy. Directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Rated: R; sex, language

Approximate running time: 91 minutes