Withnail & I

[EHV_Emmetts]

I suspect that if this had been an American film those who are critical of it would have swamped it with praise. It's always been fashionable for certain sections of the British media, and public, to castigate British films.

[batman]

I suspect that if this had been an American film those who are critical of it would have swamped it with praise. It's always been fashionable for certain sections of the British media, and public, to castigate British films.

Not this horse .... I love British films in general. I just happen not to like this one. If it was American, I'd probably like it even less!

[narabdela]

I really think that this is a Marmite of a film.

[Benjamin Gunn]

It fairs better in the written form than as a film I think .



Its a very depressing film but some of the lines are quite funny .

[Shandonbelle]

One of my fav British Films...I see each scene as being like a little mini gem..Marwood in the cafe looking around with rising panic as he observes the other customers, like the woman with fried egg squirting out of her uncut sandwich...Withnail 'demanding to have some booze' as he covers himself in deep heat..Danny with his homemade voodoo doll full of drugs...Uncle Monty hamming it up generally..the Penrith tearooms...

The music too is so well chosen...Whiter Shade of Pale setting the tone beautifully being kind of lazy, smokey, blurry...and Hendrix blasting out as the big demolition ball swings into action.

So much great additional info in your posts on this on DB7

Camberwell carrot anyone??!

[jaycad]

I really think that this is a Marmite of a film.

that's a great comment!!! totally agree!

i like the film and think it's one of the first films that had a soundtrack worth buying!

[BengalTiger]

my favourite part of this wonderful film is the scene in the cake shop , must re-enact that in my local sayers , anyone up for it ??

[Steve Crook]

my favourite part of this wonderful film is the scene in the cake shop , must re-enact that in my local sayers , anyone up for it ??

The people in most cake shops probably know the dialogue just as well as the nurses at blood donor sessions know all the lines from Hancock's The Blood Donor



Steve

[patacake]

I've tried watching it twice and failed. I did try! The first time with my then out of work actor boyfriend who was repulsed by it and who still doesn't like it. Two other actor friends didn't like it either. So many people I know like it that I definitely agree it's a real Marmite!



Another ( 'B' film in this case) I didn't like, 'Romeo of the Spirits', featuring Michael Gough as an actor who ended up a wino. I found it rather horrific, though beautifully shot amongst swirling autumn leaves,but perhaps I was being rather sensitive to my boyfriends state at the time (luckily he never turned to alcohol).

[oomska]

Withnail and I is the best british film of all time, but hey thats just my humble opinion, "what fucker said that"

[bayards]

A great film to break the ice with when meeting people - usually somone knows a line or 2 - though never started a converation with anyone called Monty and uttered "Monty you terrible C***" - what a winner that would prove to be.



The sky is beginning to bruise and we shall be forced to camp (or thereabouts - hey its 0030 already!!)

[colin fenwick]

'Withnail and I' - yes its a very obvious one to put down but it is a great, no doubt about it,and like any true classic, it bears repeated re-watching and never gets dull. ' Get Carter' also tickles my fancy more than most as does 'Carry On Up The Khyber'; my all-time favourite of the Carry On series.



Whoops! You're right. I don't know how I missed that thread at the bottom of the page.

[jaycad]

there's quite a big thread about this film already and as someone mentioned in it,'withnail and i' is a 'marmite' film! personally i love both 'withnail and i' AND marmite!

[DFN]

received a birthday greeting this morning so toddled back on over to the site.

Thought I'd resurrect this thread as it remains my favourite British film and I suspect will always have that position.

I'm inclined to visit some of the locations one day. Google maps is a great place to check them out. If you search for "Bampton, Penrith", you can zoom down to street view and walk past the phone box used for a classic scene (next to the bus stop).

[DB7]

I'm inclined to visit some of the locations one day. Google maps is a great place to check them out. If you search for "Bampton, Penrith", you can zoom down to street view and walk past the phone box used for a classic scene (next to the bus stop).

If you look at Similar Threads at the foot of this page you should see a locations thread for Withnail.

[DB7]

My favourite film: Withnail and I

In our writers' favourite films series, Tim Jonze raises a glass or six to Bruce Robinson's tale of two struggling actors who go on holiday by mistake


On telling the powers that be on the film desk that Withnail and I was my favourite movie, I was informed this was a "typical choice for muso types". I was outraged. Were they suggesting "muso types" were the kind of drug-hungry, unemployable reprobates portrayed in the film? The sort of people who live on little more than raw potato, red wine and lighter fuel? Oh …

I have to confess, I first heard about Withnail and I in terms of a drinking game – could you watch the film while matching the two lead characters shot for shot, pint for pint, Camberwell carrot for Camberwell carrot? Yet for all the wanton liver damage caught on celluloid here, Withnail and I is so much more than just a reckless bender. For me, it's a devastating portrayal of that terrifying moment when adulthood finally catches up with you.

Doubtless the film buffs gathered here don't need a lengthy plot summary so I'll keep it brief. Withnail (Richard E Grant) and I (aka Marwood – although you'd only know this from the screenplay – played by Paul McGann) decide they need a break from their squalid lives as struggling actors in Camden and persuade Withnail's rich uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) to let them spend the weekend at his cottage in Cumbria. Their plans for a period of relaxation and indulgence are thwarted, however, by their inability to cope with ghastly weather, frosty locals and the advances of Monty himself, who joins them unannounced halfway through their stay and makes it his mission to have his wicked way with Marwood.

I first watched this plot unfold as a teenager, along with my little brother. We resolved to spend the next 15 years watching it again. And again. And again. Before long the most quoted lines ("Hair are your aerials", "I feel like a pig shat in my head", "Perfumed ponce!", "We've come on holiday by mistake", "I demand to have some booze!" … oh, sorry, you haven't got all day?) became passé and we started finding hidden humour lying in the merest twinge of facial expression. (Marwood's terrified grins being the best.)

Like all great comedy films, you'll notice new lines with each viewing. When I revisited the film I couldn't believe I'd missed the potted cauliflower in Monty's living room as he raves about his love for growing vegetables ("I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium") or Marwood's withering line about having to listen to "yet another anecdote about [Monty's] sensitive crimes … in a punt with a chap called Norman who had red hair and a book of poetry stained with the butter drips from crumpets."

These are the reasons why Withnail and I makes me crease up with laughter, but they're not why I truly love this movie. The film is set in 1969, a time when what Danny refers to as "the greatest decade in the history of mankind" is fizzling out, leaving an entire generation with one hell of a comedown. The feeling of a utopian dream dying is encapsulated in one of Danny's most memorable lines – "They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man" – and parallels our two anti-heroes' own farewell to their 20s. (As Withnail says: "I'm 30 in a month and I've got a sole flapping from my shoe.")

As a teenager I identified with Withnail's sense of rebellion, even if the rebellion we see only ever really extends as far as driving dangerously and upsetting a few old ladies in a tea room. When you're young you feel anything is possible and one day – to paraphrase Withnail's drunken pronouncement to an empty Penrith sky – you'll show the lot of them, you're gonna be a star. My brother and I certainly did, as we smoked weed in the local park on hot summer nights and plotted a fantastical future. But the people you'd planned your revolution with end up betraying you: your peers settle down, they sign up for management training schemes, they have kids. Some of us delay adult responsibilities by becoming music journalists – a chance not to grow up for another decade at least – but you can only hide for so long.

When Marwood secures an acting job and finally leaves Withnail outside in the rain, Withnail's face isn't sad, it's scared. His decision to opt out of the system has suddenly left him stranded. "There's always time for a drink?" he says, offering to share a stolen bottle of Monty's 1953 Château Margaux. But Marwood, with his newly cropped hair, needs to cut him loose and move on. Throughout the film, the selfish, cowardly Withnail is never the character you empathise with, yet this feels like another one of those massive betrayals.

Adulthood. Responsibility. The meaning of friendship and the passing of time. Behind the boozing, these are some of the big themes Withnail and I deals with. Themes, no doubt, that some of us "muso types" are still trying to run from.