Withnail & I

In the late 1960'sm Withnail and our narrator are two unemployed actors who have little chance of being employed. Fed up with their lot in Camden, they flee for a restful break in Penrith in the cottage of Withnail's Uncle Monty. However the facilities, the oddball locals and the advances of Monty put their friendship under pressure.

There is very little I can add to the many reviews that have rightly praised this film as one of the funniest British films ever. The basic plot is not enough to keep you watching and you should not come to this film looking for an amazing narrative - I have watched this several times and never once has it mattered where the film was going, only how it goes there. The joy of the film is a script that is rich in highly memorable and quotable dialogue that will make you laugh out loud. It is crass to let this become a list of lines but if you stood up in certain circles and declared `I demand booze' or `I want something's flesh' then it would immediately be recognised!

Of course, the dialogue would not work if it were delivered badly, a problem that does not exist here. Grant is, and always will be, Withnail; no matter how many stupid adverts he does for shops this is how I will remember him. His delivery is tremendous and he brings the character to life in a spinning fireball of comedic excess! McGann has the less showy part but is equally as good and has to make his character real in order to hold the film together. Support roles are just as well scripted and just as funny - notably Griffiths (you terrible c*nt!) and the late Michael Elphick.

Overall this is simply one of the best British comedies ever made and it breaks my heart to see voter's lists where things like Four Weddings top it! The delivery is great and the writing is consistently outrageous and hilarious. The only downside of this film is that director/writer Robinson has never topped this wonderful movie and looks like he never will.

There is no other movie that I have seen where almost every line of the screenplay is memorable. This is a beautifully crafted script and many of the lines in the film will live with you forever.

But of course, it is the way the words are spoken that makes them so memorable, and this is where Marwood and Withnail take you through a journey of almost impeccable desperation, confusion, anxiety, freedom and ultimately love, loss and redemption.

It's in this field of complex and beautifully woven emotion that all the aspects of the film become greater than the sum of it's parts.

To hear Withnail quoting Hamlet in the rain at the end of the film is one of the most underrated moments of modern cinematic history-it's stunning.

If you've ever spent time in London, been naughty and been caught in a period of uncomfortable and chaotic transition this is a film that will capture you.

This film is about 'youth, beauty and decay' as Uncle Monty would say.

What a film! The one-liners, the names (Monty, Withnail...where else would you find such spectacular names?!) True it does not have much of a plot but what it lacks in plot it makes up for in sheer brilliance of dialogue and wit. I had never heard of this film and then suddenly out of the blue : the people i babysat for told me about it, my friend Sarah began raving about it and then the ultimate shove towards watching it, my sister brought the video home! Now if that is not fate i don't know what is. I will be forever grateful. Richard E. Grant is the epitome of the brilliant character actor(i would put his performance on a level such as Daniel Day Lewis, a fete not known by any other actor in my book)finding an exquisite foil in McGann. Watch this film and if you do not find it in the least bit interesting then so be it you are condemned to be boring forever. But if you do not even crack a smile at the infamous line GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN!! then i would worry for your future in the art of film watching.

The first time I watched 'Withnail and I' in the late 80s I thought it was pretty good, but that's about it. Over the years, and a few more viewings, it really started to grow on me, and recently rewatching it on DVD for the first time I was struck at how brilliant and unique it is. It's a very subtle film really, and most comedy is admittedly a matter of taste, but if this movie clicks with you you'll most likely end up putting it in amongst your all time favourites. To me it's one of the greatest comedies ever. It's intelligent and sad and genuinely laugh out loud FUNNY, something you rarely see these days. The movie is episodic and seems to ramble on, but it's much more than a shaggy dog story, there's an underlying depth and melancholy to it that makes it something special. Richard E. Grant has never been better than this. Playing Withnail and writing his wonderful autobiography cement his place in film history as far as I'm concerned. Paul McGann is also excellent, and there are lovely performances from Richard Griffiths, Michael Elphick and Ralph Brown. EVERYONE is good in 'Withnail' but it's still Grant's movie all the way. He is just utterly brilliant! 'Withnail and I' is one of THE great British movies, and comes with my highest recommendation.

Withnail & I (Bruce Robinson, 1987) has one of the great scripts, with skies that are "beginning to bruise", a landlord "who was coming over all bald" and a pair of heroes who "are drifting into the arena of the unwell". Paul McGann is "I" (the script calls him Marwood), a mild-mannered actor who decamps to the country for the weekend with boozing, carousing flatmate Withnail (Richard E. Grant) - an eternally inebriated bull artist and wannabe thespian - and the unwelcome Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths). There they battle against supposed starvation, fear grown of disorientation and alcohol, and the advances of predatory homosexual Monty, who has his eye on I.

The plotting is virtually non-existent, but the dialogue is sensational and Grant's theatrics as the gaunt, wild-eyed Withnail are the stuff of legend - culminating in a heartbreaking spot of Hamlet in the pouring rain. McGann, in his more restrained part, is also superb, while Griffiths oscillates between being affectingly vulnerable and hilariously irritating and weird with admirable regularity. Though there are moments of conventionality that jar with the brilliance frequently dripping from Robinson's pen - including some "fish out of water" stuff that could have come straight from The Egg & I - and Ralph Brown is a bit one-note (and a bit much) as a frazzled drug dealer, there isn't a half-minute that passes without some moment of borderline genius or a disarmingly hysterical joke. Though superficially dealing with excess and the foreign nation that is the English countryside, Withnail & I is really a film about self-destruction, self-delusion and friendship, as one young man heads for the big-time and another for the alcoholics' ward. As a comedy, it's virtually matchless - as a tale of lost dreams, heartbreaking.

Trivia notes: Robinson boiled down three years' of experiences in a shared flat in London to a narrative spanning two weeks. Withnail is based on Vivian MacKerrell, a friend who talked about how he was the best at everything, "but never did anything" - in Robinson's words. Uncle Monty was famously inspired by the writer-director's experience of working for Italian filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, who supposedly pursued the boyish Robinson after casting him in Romeo and Juliet. The line: "Are you a sponge or a stone?", is apparently ripped from that encounter.