Director: Bruce Robinson
Actors: Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown
Date: 1986
How viewed: Already in my collection
Rating: 4/5
David Meyer says:
Non-stop breathtakingly articulate word play, characters you know from life but have never seen before on the screen; dialogue you will repeat to your friends for months; and the least stupid dope jokes you ever heard.
I say:
Over the years, I've watched this at least 3 times, and have moved from liking it 'not at all', to 'a little' and now to 'quite a bit', but I'm still not sure it deserves it's cult classic status. I realise now that it's Bruce Robinson's Wednesday Play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wednesday_Play) - in the late 60's The Wednesday Play made us all potential play-writers - it was said that everyone in London had an idea, or a half-written script, for one - mine was based on a day I had in Hastings with Fred, Jane and Carole - and, essentially for a Wednesday Play, it tried to reflect 'a day in the life' in which nothing much happened! In 'Withnail and I' two neurotic, paranoid and alcoholic out of work actors living in grey, depressing, rainy London escape to grey, depressing, rainy Cumbria for a weekend, but of course they cope even worse with the conditions there (or gay Uncle Monty's predatory advances - 'we've gone on holiday by mistake') and return a.s.a.p. It's a complete antithesis of the portrayal of swinging 60's London, but, as Danny (the drug dealer) says 'The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over' and the 70's approach (incidentally the way Danny speaks just seems to be the prototype for every on-screen laid-back doped-up dealer ever since!). I don't recall London being that grim though - the film is set a month or 2 after the first moon landing (July 20th in the US, 21st in London) and I remember sitting up half the night in the flat I shared in Bayswater (not a million miles from Withnail's Camden) to watch the live grainy TV picture of something indistinguishable happening somewhere unimaginable, which nevertheless made anything seem possible. However, the fact that I can remember it probably indicates that I did not take enough drugs...
Watched this about 20 years ago with a friend who over-sold it (he'd been watching it daily, I think, and was so into the in-jokes). I really must go back and watch this again. Consider me inspired.
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