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ironic tone that veers between comedy and drama and keeps us slightly off balance. The look of the film is also striking, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given Mills’s graphic arts background. He chose a burgeoning suburban neighborhood in Oregon for his location because he liked its unfinished appearance, and decided to film in wide screen—a counterintuitive decision for an intimate story that pays off handsomely.

Incidentally, when Thumbsucker made the rounds of the film festival circuit it was often on the same program as a movie called The Chumscrubber, which caused some degree of confusion, not the least because Pucci also appears in that film (albeit in a supporting role, billed as Lou Taylor Pucci).

Still, with so many solid names in its cast and good reviews behind it, I thought Thumbsucker would have a shot at success in theatrical release. It didn’t…yet it remains one of my favorite unsung films of the decade.

135. TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY

(2006)

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce (billed as Martin Hardy)

Based on the novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

Actors:

STEVE COOGAN

ROB BRYDON

JEREMY NORTHAM

RAYMOND WARING

DYLAN MORAN

KEELEY HAWES

KELLY MACDONALD

SHIRLEY HENDERSON

STEPHEN FRY

NAOMIE HARRIS

IAN HART

ROGER ALLAM

GILLIAN ANDERSON

BENEDICT WONG

GREG WISE

RONNI ANCONA

The concept of a film-within-a-film isn’t new but it always offers interesting possibilities, if the creators don’t become consumed by their own cleverness. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story risks being hoist on its own petard in just this way and avoids it—through sheer audacity.

The ostensible premise here is that a film troupe is shooting an adaptation of clergyman Lawrence Sterne’s ribald, notoriously “unfilmable” 1760 book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman on location in and around a magisterial estate in England. The cheeky British comic actor Steve Coogan plays Tristram (as well as his father) but, in alternate moments, portrays “himself,” an insufferable, ego-driven boor of an actor who is constantly parrying with his quick-witted protégé Rob Brydon. (It’s helpful—but not necessary—to know that Coogan achieved TV stardom in the UK on a series called I’m Alan Partridge. Before long even the uninitiated viewer gets the gist of Brydon’s merciless ribbing.)

Director Michael Winterbottom, who’s better known for such serious films as Welcome to Sarajevo and A Mighty Heart, suddenly and seamlessly takes us from eighteenth-century scenes to chaotic, often hilarious antics that are going on just outside the frame, as it were. The trials of making a costume movie on location under a tight budget, while accommodating the needs (and egos) of the many cast and crew members, are vividly depicted in this fast-paced frolic. It’s dizzying at times, but not in an off-putting way; we absorb some of the inner movie’s content, and certainly its tone and point of view, while we’re marveling at the bedlam surrounding it.

The ingenious screenplay was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, who worked with Winterbottom before on a number of films including Butterfly Kiss, Welcome to Sarajevo, The Claim, and notably 24 Hour Party People, which showcased Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson, the man who popularized the Manchester music scene in the 1970s. Coogan spoke directly to the camera in that film, which may have given Boyce and Winterbottom the inspiration to further expand the notion of breaking the “fourth wall,” as they do here.

A fine supporting cast includes Jeremy Northam, Shirley Henderson, Keeley Hawes, Kelly Macdonald, Naomie Harris, Ian Hart, Roger Allam, Stephen Fry, and Gillian Anderson, whose hiring for the film-within-a-film becomes a key story point. Everyone seems to share Coogan’s fearlessness in being portrayed in less-than-idealized terms—and that’s part of the fun.

136. TUMBLEWEEDS

(1999)

Directed by Gavin O’Connor

Screenplay by Gavin O’Connor and Angela Shelton

Story by Angela Shelton

Actors:

JANET