'TRISTRAM SHANDY' CAPTURES UNFILMABLE NOVEL.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE NOVEL was just developing as a literary form in the 1700s when Laurence Sterne wrote ``The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.'' Few have so hilariously deconstructed its conventions since.

While loaded with all manner of what would, centuries later, be called postmodern subversions, Sterne's main gambit was to have his fictional English aristocrat Shandy attempt to narrate the story of his life but get so distracted with back story and diversions that he doesn't even get around to his own birth until the novel's end.

For this reason and many others, ``Shandy'' has been considered unfilmable throughout the century-plus of cinema (although there was, I believe, an attempt on British television). But ``Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story,'' seems to have cracked the nut, as it were.

Directed by England's eclectic Michael Winterbottom (``Jude,'' ``In This World,'' ``9 Songs'') and adapted by his frequent collaborator Frank Cottrell-Boyce (under the surely in- joke pseudonym Martin Hardy), ``Cock and Bull'' is about trying to make a movie out of ``Tristram Shandy'' - and, for the most part, coming off foolishly in the attempt.

Steve Coogan, who starred in Winterbottom's trippy Manchester music scene picture ``24 Hour Party People,'' plays a rendition of himself, a vain, scandal-plagued actor who's starring as both Tristram and his father, Walter Shandy, in the movie within the movie. He's constantly in scene-stealing contention with Rob Brydon (played by Rob Brydon, another comic actor better-known in Britain than here), who has the showier role of Tristram's embarrassingly battle-wounded uncle Toby Shandy.

When not trying to cadge more dialogue or shoes that make him look taller, Coogan is fending off tabloid reporters and trying to remain faithful to the sweet mother of his baby, Jenny (Kelly Macdonald), while wrestling with his attraction to a differently spelled Jennie (Naomie Harris), a production assistant who seems to be the only person on the entire set who knows anything about the art of cinema - or, indeed, who may have actually read Sterne's book. Former ``X-Filer'' Gillian Anderson shows up late in the proceedings as another double-edged representative of stunt casting.

Reportedly, financing ran out during ``Cock and Bull's'' making, and that situation is of course reflected in the movie's scenario. In fact, anything that can go wrong with a serious- minded independent production gets comic treatment in the finished product, and the parallels between a novel that never gets started and a film that barely gets completed are often noted.

It's all done very smartly. Yet little of it seems original, mainly because movies about the absurdities of making movies are far more common than self-reflexive 18th-century novels. Many of the jokes depend on familiarity with Coogan's reputation in Britain as a bit of a cad and a guy who's made much of his living pretending to be venal show-biz types, so don't expect to understand a portion of the jokey specifics.

But then, you shouldn't even think about going to a movie with ``Tristram Shandy'' in its title unless you're prepared for massive, brain-melting reference-mangling. Even if you never get up to speed on half of what this movie tosses about, the half you do get should keep you laughing all the way to the library.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY - Three stars

(R: language, graphic childbirth)

Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Naomie Harris, Kelly Macdonald, Gillian Anderson, Jeremy Northam.

Director: Michael Winterbottom.

Running time: 1 hr. 31 min.

Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; Laemmle Monica, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Laurence Sterne's unfilmable 18th-century novel gets turned into a movie about trying to make a movie out of it. Very smart and funny jabs at filmmaking, postmodernism and all that, but a lot of it feels like stuff we've seen before.