I was amongst the very few people who saw Withnail and I on its cinema release early in 1988. It passed by largely unnoticed, but has since grown in reputation due to video, DVD and repeated TV screenings. A favourite of drunk students, it's the best film made about friendship and also ticks those two indispensable boxes necessary for assessing a great film: it stands up on repeated viewings and it is timeless.
Bruce Robinson wrote from his own experiences of living as an unemployed actor in the 1960s (and, in the Uncle Monty case, of almost being seduced whilst filming 'Romeo and Juliet'). One of my all-time favourite films, it's the story of the end of a friendship and takes place in a very specific time and place: London and the Lake District in the autumn of 1969. But's a world away from the 'Swinging 60s' of myth - this is an England of grim flats, of overcast and rainy countryside. Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and his anonymous flatmate (Paul McGann) are two unemployed actors sharing a run down Camden Town flat. They spend there time getting drunk at the pub, or buying cannabis from the hippie drug dealer Danny (Ralph Brown). Withnail is all ego and unfulfilled ambition, and a respite from their existence comes in the form of Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), who, in McGann's words, is "raving homosexual". Monty loans them his Lake District cottage for a weekend. It turns out to gloomy and cold, and Monty soon arrives determined to have his wicked way with McGann. The two return to London, where McGann is offered a job in rep in Manchester and the two have a tearful farewell in the pouring rain before a drunken Withnail recites Hamlet to the Wolves.
And that's it. There's no real story, just a series of incidents. No women, no romantic interest, no story arc or 'journey' so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters. There are no 'jokes' as such, just witty and clever lines. And yet the film is perfect. Not a scene or a line could be cut without loosing something from the overall texture. The two actors complement each other beautifully: the low-key McGann and the sometimes manic and desperate ex-public school boy Grant, frequently drunk, always resentful and bitter. Griffiths is a triumph as the flowery Monty, forever going on about his youthful indiscretions, but actually quite threatening when he bursts into McGann's bedroom dressed in a nightgown and proclaiming "I adore you". And it's Danny who delivers my favourite line: "We're 90 days away from end of the greatest decade in the history of mankind". Outside, in the real world, the Beatles had just recorded their final album and British troops had just been sent to Northern Ireland. This is the end of the Sixties dream.
The final farewell in the rain is poignant and moving without being mawkish. Like the best English films ('24 Hour Party People', 'Life of Brian', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'. 'A Matter of Life and Death'), it's a complete one off and one I shall never tire of seeing.
Bruce Robinson wrote from his own experiences of living as an unemployed actor in the 1960s (and, in the Uncle Monty case, of almost being seduced whilst filming 'Romeo and Juliet'). One of my all-time favourite films, it's the story of the end of a friendship and takes place in a very specific time and place: London and the Lake District in the autumn of 1969. But's a world away from the 'Swinging 60s' of myth - this is an England of grim flats, of overcast and rainy countryside. Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and his anonymous flatmate (Paul McGann) are two unemployed actors sharing a run down Camden Town flat. They spend there time getting drunk at the pub, or buying cannabis from the hippie drug dealer Danny (Ralph Brown). Withnail is all ego and unfulfilled ambition, and a respite from their existence comes in the form of Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), who, in McGann's words, is "raving homosexual". Monty loans them his Lake District cottage for a weekend. It turns out to gloomy and cold, and Monty soon arrives determined to have his wicked way with McGann. The two return to London, where McGann is offered a job in rep in Manchester and the two have a tearful farewell in the pouring rain before a drunken Withnail recites Hamlet to the Wolves.
And that's it. There's no real story, just a series of incidents. No women, no romantic interest, no story arc or 'journey' so beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters. There are no 'jokes' as such, just witty and clever lines. And yet the film is perfect. Not a scene or a line could be cut without loosing something from the overall texture. The two actors complement each other beautifully: the low-key McGann and the sometimes manic and desperate ex-public school boy Grant, frequently drunk, always resentful and bitter. Griffiths is a triumph as the flowery Monty, forever going on about his youthful indiscretions, but actually quite threatening when he bursts into McGann's bedroom dressed in a nightgown and proclaiming "I adore you". And it's Danny who delivers my favourite line: "We're 90 days away from end of the greatest decade in the history of mankind". Outside, in the real world, the Beatles had just recorded their final album and British troops had just been sent to Northern Ireland. This is the end of the Sixties dream.
The final farewell in the rain is poignant and moving without being mawkish. Like the best English films ('24 Hour Party People', 'Life of Brian', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp'. 'A Matter of Life and Death'), it's a complete one off and one I shall never tire of seeing.