Withnail & I

This 1987 British comedy has become something of a cult hit over in the UK, but it has never made much of an impression over here. I've known its star, Richard Grant, mainly through his supporting role as a shallow twit in Steve Martin's LA Story and even briefer appearances in Gosford Park and Coppola's Dracula movie.

But nothing I have ever seen him in approaches the level of his work in Withnail & I, a truly inspired movie that never quite goes where you expect.



I was inspired to rent Withnail because its director, the now-legendary Bruce Robinson, has just signed on to direct his first movie in 13 years (the last being the failed attempt at a studio crossover, Jennifer 8). He will helm The Rum Diary, a reunion of the two stars of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Benicio del Toro and Johnny Depp, in another adaptation of a Hunter Thompson novel. Holy shit, but that's exciting news.

And it's somewhat appropriate material for Robinson. Not that the two wretches in Withnail & I resemble the wretches in Thompson novels. But the outlook on life is similar - a cynical and embittered yet somehow hopeful view, where the present represents the worst of everything and therefore should be blotted out of existance by drugs and alcohol.

Even the time periods are similar. Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing was set in 1971, and Withnail & I occurs entirely in 1969. The story opens in London, where two out of work actors named Withnail and Peter (Grant and Paul McGann) live squalidly in a filthy hovel. Their friends and scumbags and drug dealers, including the extremely shifty Danny (Ralph Brown).

Interesting side note about Ralph Brown: he would later reprise this character as the roadie in Wayne's World 2. I have always loved his character in that movie, and felt it was the best thing about that disappointing sequel. But until now, I had no idea that the entire character was basically lifted from a previous movie. Anyway, Brown is magnificent here, and the fact that he doesn't completely upstage the two leads in their own movie is a testament to the delightful turns by Grant and McGann.

Anyway, back to the story. Withnail and Peter (who is referred to only as "I" in the movie) convince Withnail's rich and eccentric Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths, best known Stateside as Harry Potter's evil uncle Vernon) to loan them his country home. They're desperate to escape London, even if only for a few days, and are perfectly willing to squeeze an old man for everything he has.

That the adventure in the country will become a misadventure, and that Withnail and "I" will discover deeply obscured truths about one another and the nature of their friendship goes without saying. What impressed me about the film wasn't so much its originality but its honesty, both practical and emotional.

The film refuses to sugarcoat the life of a struggling artist. While most films would be tempted to romanticize the day-to-day of an out-of-work actor, like say the dreadful HBO faux-reality series Unscripted, Withnail looks on with bemused horror at the way its characters have chosen to live, and at the lack of self-respect for themselves and others their behavior and lifestyle conveys.

Also, Withnail himself is not a particularly good actor. This may be one of the reasons he never seems to find acting work. I was reminded of Martin Scorsese's brilliant The King of Comedy, which always subverts expectations at every turn. By the end of the film, you're prepared for main character Rupert Pupkin to fail miserably at comedy, to prove beyond a doubt that he's an imbalanced freak. But instead, he performs and everything goes rather well. He's clearly not a comic genius, but he's not quite a failure either, and we're forced to reflect on the sad truth - that most comics, that most people, are messed up just like Rupert Pupkin, and that his somewhat crazed psyche doesn't prevent him from doing a job like anyone else.

Similarly, we see Withnail's flowery manner of speaking and exhuberant persona, we hear him prattle on about his wonderful talent being shamefully overlooked, and then we come to understand that we've simply been won over by him. We've convinced ourselves he has value because he's so charming, just as "I" forgives all of his transgressions. In the end, Withnail & I is a film about the bonds of friendship, and how we can wind up entangled with people for life whose personalities are constantly in conflict with our own.

By the film's conclusion, of course, the friends will be presented by a challenge that threatens to pull them apart. It's a bittersweet climax, particularly considering that the real-life friend of director Bruce Robinson, upon whom the movie was based, died tragically shortly after its debut. And though the film has unfolded as a rather raucous, and extremely quotable comedy, it packs quite an emotional punch at the conclusion. It's rare that a film so consistantly funny could manage to pull off such a dramatic scene, especially considering that the sequence proceeding it deals with a man rolling a joint made of 12 rolling papers. But the genre mash-up works.

I'm led to believe, from a documentary on the Withnail & I DVD and a bit of Internet research, that to British teens and 20-somethings, this movie is a sort-of Euro Big Lebowski. That cultish young people can recite the entire movie verbatim, and get together in large groups to watch it regularly. It's not terribly hard to believe. The erratic wit of Withnail likely improves with repeat viewings, and these characters are just so easy to enjoy, I can imagine wanting to revisit the film several times. I'm kind of amazed I've never seen this movie before. I would think it's the kind of movie people would be likely to recommend after seeing it. I mean, a rambling, loopy kind of human comedy? Who doesn't like that?