Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I is a doped-out comedy spun from autobiographical threads about two unemployed actors trying to make the best of times in London in late 1969. It features a bizarre cast of characters, has no real plot, and is shot in the rather dull, straightforward style of a first-time director trying to find his feet. Yet, it is a wonderfully written bit, more literary than cinematic, and the movie chugs forward on the sheer strength of its dialogue and performers.

For this reason, it has garnered something of a cult following, especially in England, since its theatrical release 15 years ago. Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), This is Spinal Tap (1984), and other movies with cult followings, Withnail and I is endlessly quotable, offering line after line of dialogue whose most important characteristic is that it gets funnier each time you hear it. On first viewing, Withnail and I is a shaggy, sometime ponderous movie about two very dislikable characters. But, each subsequent viewing unveils something you missed the first time around, usually in the dialogue. A throwaway line here, a pitch in the voice there, a reply that didn't quite make sense the first time around. This, I think, is why so many people watch this movie over and over and over again: It keeps getting better.

The two main character are Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and Peter Marwood (Paul McGann), the "I" of the title. When the film opens, Withnail and Marwood are living in the filthy squalor of their flat in London, unemployed (probably, at least in Withnail's case, unemployable), drowning themselves in booze and drugs and self-pity. These early scenes establish the two characters, portraying Marwood as a somewhat quiet and reserved young man who has, nonetheless, been drawn into Withnail's orbit. Withnail, who was based on a friend of writer/director Bruce Robinson's, is an utterly self-absorbed character whose own inflated view of himself radiates outward and tends to make him seem grander than he actually is. Withnail is a poser, full of hot air, lies, and complaints, yet there is something intensely attractive about him.

Desperate to escape the tedium of their lives in London, Withnail and Marwood decide to go to the country on holiday, using a cottage owned by Withnail's eccentric (read: very weird) and wealthy Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths). We are introduced to Monty in a positively hilarious scene in which Withnail and Marwood attempt to pass themselves off as successful actors in Monty's lavish drawing room while Monty, absurdly overweight and pompous, rambles on and on about the difference between carrots and flowers, which we eventually realize are bizarre metaphors for his barely suppressed homosexuality. About geraniums, he says, "Flowers are essentially tarts, prostitutes for the bees," while he goes on about how there is "something very special about a firm, young carrot."

Withnail and Marwood eventually make it out to Monty's summer cottage, finding it not everything they had hoped. In other words, it's a little more rustic than they had expected and, not having any money, they are strapped to find firewood and food. They are also forced to deal, at various times, with inclement weather, a horny bull, and locals who don't take kindly to urban types on holiday.

Nothing, though, prepares them for the unexpected arrival of Monty, who decides to surprise them by spending the weekend at the cottage. Withnail is happy because Monty brings plenty of food and fine wine to keep him full and inebriated. Marwood is not so pleased because it comes at his expense, as it becomes patently clear that Monty has set his sights on Marwood and proceeds to pursue him in an increasingly aggressive fashion. Monty's pompous stories and musings become more and more explicit in their sexual orientation, which makes Marwood more and more nervous. Withnail, self-absorbed as always, couldn't care less as long he is well-fed and drunk.

Essentially, the movie doesn't offer much more than this plot-wise, but that's not Robinson's point. In Withnail and I, Robinson is trying to evoke a feeling based on his own memories of being an aimless young man in the late 1960s with grand dreams and seemingly no place to go. What little plot exists is merely there to act as a framework on which Robinson can create the sensation of Withnail and Marwood's lives. The movie is, in many ways, a character study, and the end makes clear that it is eventually Marwood who will move on in life, while Withnail will be forever trapped in his own cocoon of self-importance.

Withnail and I is frequently hilarious in the way that real life is hilarious--in stops and starts. Some of the funniest lines come from a nonsensical, long-haired drug dealer named Danny (Ralph Brown), who seems to exist in the movie for no other reason than to show that there are people like Danny in the world, the kind of people who talk a lot but never really say anything. But, that's the kind of movie this is, interested less in the mechanics of narrative and more in the idiosyncrasies of that thing we call life. Shot on a low budget with a cast of then mostly unknown actors, Withnail and I is a triumph of personal vision, a movie that was conceived and executed in a very particular way without any compromise. I suspect that those who do not appreciate it, especially after several viewings, will simply never get it.

©2001 James Kendrick