You been away? Following along on the hijinks of two out of work drunkards. I'm not going to understudy anybody. Bound together by poverty and dreams of stardom, they share a flat of indescribable squalor and live on a diet of booze, pills and grass. Withnail & I Withnail and I review – every line is a quotable joy I am intensely envious of anyone seeing this glorious re-released classic for the first time Loosely based on Robinson's life in London in the late 1960s, the plot follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann, respectively) who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. There can be no true beauty without decay. Withnail and I is a 1987 British buddy film written and directed by Bruce Robinson, based on an unpublished, semi-autobiographical novel, based in turn on his experiences as an actor during such incidents as the filming of Franco Zeffirelli ‘s Romeo and Juliet. Bound together by poverty and dreams of stardom, they share a flat of indescribable squalor and live on a diet of booze, pills and grass. Amazon.com: Withnail and I: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown, Michael Elphick, Daragh O'Malley, Michael Wardle, Una Brandon-Jones, Noel Johnson, Irene Sutcliffe, Llewellyn Rees, Robert Oates, Peter Hannan, Bruce Robinson, David Wimbury, Denis O'Brien, George Harrison, Lawrence Kirstein, Paul M. Heller, Bruce Robinson: Movies & TV St Peter preached the epistles to the apostles looking like that. Read about our approach to external linking. We want them here and we want them now!” And alcohol gushes so copiously through the story that a Withnail and I drinking game was inevitable. Love film and TV? The “hard-drinking” part of that scenario can’t be overstated. Uncle Monty’s advances were allegedly based on Robinson’s experience of rebuffing director Franco Zeffirelli’s attentions during the filming of Romeo and Juliet (Credit: Alamy), The screenplay in question found its way to HandMade Films, the company co-founded by George Harrison, the ex-Beatle. (“It was like walking into a lung.”) And that’s about it. Scrubbers! The movie, which takes place in England in late 1969, involves the misadventures of a pair of chronically unemployed actors. Nicholas Barber explores its appeal. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Withnail and I wasn’t a box-office sensation when it came out in 1987. London, 1969 - two 'resting' (unemployed and unemployable) actors, Withnail and Marwood, fed up with damp, cold, piles of washing-up, mad drug dealers and psychotic Irishmen, decide to ... See full summary ». No fridges, no televisions, no phones! I want something's flesh! That means we'll miss out on Monday but come up smiling Tuesday morning. Withnail & I Quotes. Harrison was keen to finance offbeat British projects, but O’Brien had his sights set on big-budget Hollywood-style event movies. “I knew it was right up George’s street because he was part of that era, the end of the 1960s, and it had the humour that he adored: very, very English, extremely acerbic and edgy and wonderful.”, Harrison’s business partner, Denis O’Brien, wasn’t convinced. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Nonsense, this is a far superior drink to meths! A hilarious, melancholy tragicomedy, it is still obscure enough for its fervent fans to feel as if they are members of an exclusive club. “As he grew more and more upbeat after seeing dailies I knew it must be good,” says McGann. It's society's crime, not ours. “The pathos of the ending reinforces the peculiar poignancy of student friendships,” says Smith, “at once contingent and intimate, transient and unforgettable.”. “Withnail and Marwood live the clichéd life of superannuated students,” says Justin Smith, the author of Withnail and Us, Cult Films and Film Cults in British Cinema. Prostitutes for the bees. I think that scenario is wonderfully recognisable to most students.”, Withnail’s demand that “We want the finest wines available to humanity! You are invited to spend an hilarious weekend in the English countryside. https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Withnail_and_I&oldid=2954159, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. How can it be so cold in here? As you watch, you feel as if you would want to go on your own, similar trip. I'm in a park and I'm practically dead; what good's the countryside? Withnail & I - Full Movie | 1987 Let's join, fullHD Movies/Season/Episode here! Like many pre-Stonewall homosexuals of his class, he is educated, cultivated, and sees himself as a repository and guardian of history and culture. We are not drunks, we are multi-millionaires! A coward you are, Withnail! If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. We've got to get some booze. As revered as Withnail and I has become, it was never destined to be a blockbuster. The script, in particular, is often hailed as a work of comic genius. “Including the French and Latin ones.”, In 2017, a poll by Time Out magazine ranked Withnail and I the 15th best British film ever made (Credit: Alamy). We get in there and get wrecked, then we eat a pork pie, then we drop a couple of Surmontil-50s each. As a youth, I used to weep in butchers' shops! Peter Marwood ("I"): We want the finest wines available to humanity! I'm a trained actor reduced to the status of a bum. “We’ve all been that age,” says Kim Leggatt, the co-director of An Accidental Studio. Black puddings are no good to us. I'm preparing myself to forgive you. Jesus Christ! We live in a land of weather forecasts and breakfasts that set in, shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour, and here we are, we three; perhaps the last island of beauty... in the world. This page was last edited on 23 April 2021, at 03:33. “It was the kind of film you wanted people to talk about, but it wasn’t in cinemas long enough for people to start talking. Today the tale of excess and squalor is a cult classic. Withnail: We want the finest wines available to humanity. Withnail And I works as a comedy, but it's a comedy of desperation, and the ever-present specter of failure, overdose, and addiction haunting its leads lends it an aura of lyrical sadness. Withnail and I is a 1986 film comedy written and directed by Bruce Robinson and starring Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (Marwood, the "I" of the title), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty) and Ralph Brown (Danny). The film was based on the experiences of writer-director Bruce Robinson as a penniless actor in the 1960s (Credit: Alamy), “I remember it being a hugely important film when I was at university from 1991 to 1994,” says Paul Elliott, head of film and media production at the University of Worcester. The growing squalor of their surroundings is something beyond their control and for which they claim no responsibility. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty and drive there. These are the sort of windows faces look in at! No one evolves as a person, or achieves anything momentous. More significantly, Withnail and I may well be the ultimate film about student life, even though the characters aren’t students. Something's got to be done. “This was before student loans, when students where still very much like the characters. “After two weeks he wanted to close the film down,” says Cooper. I feel dreadful, I feel really dreadful. I mean, look at us! And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. Neither McGann nor Grant had been in a film before, and while its writer-director, Bruce Robinson, had been Oscar-nominated for his screenplay for The Killing Fields, this was his first shot at directing. These aren't accidents, they're throwing themselves into the road! “They’re penniless, hard-drinking, and drug-infested. I want to see that film, so we’ve got to make it.’ It was as naive, innocent, simple and beautiful as that.”, And so Withnail and I was completed – and Robinson was pleased with the resulting “masterpiece”, as he called it. An expert on bulls you are not! The film stars Richard E. Grant as Withnail, a messed-up, flamboyant alcoholic, and Paul McGann as Marwood (or "I", since he's never named in the actual film), his slightly more gentle and sensible friend. Withnail and I is a 1986 film comedy written and directed by Bruce Robinson and starring Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (Marwood, the "I" of the title), Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty) and Ralph Brown (Danny). It wasn’t given a big release. A million miles from the freewheeling likes of US movie National Lampoon’s Animal House, Robinson’s film captured the toxic dinginess of further education at that time. Withnail & I is not just about growing up, but about growing out of the 1960s, including its culture of expressive individualism and addictive self-indulgence. Danny the dealer is discovered uninvited and asleep in the flat. I DEMAND TO HAVE SOME BOOZE" Review by Justin Peterson ★★½ 10. All right, this is the plan. Night must fall and we shall be forced to camp. Scrubbers! They cook a chicken, and they go to the pub. “I was sure people would enjoy it – we did, after all – and probably imagined it would be an arthouse hit or something.”, That didn’t quite happen. Come on lads, let's get home, the sky's beginning to bruise. Withnail and I are two young would-be actors who wake up one morning to find only ninety days left in the decade. 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 … Camden Town, the end of the sixties and two out-of-work actors, Withnail (Grant) and 'I' (McGann), subsist on a diet of booze, drugs and fags in their revolting flat. It's like Greenland in here. “It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve probably had every single line of it said back to me,” he says. They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man. The most comforting films for tough times, BBC Culture’s poll of cinema’s funniest ever comedies, Withnail and Us, Cult Films and Film Cults in British Cinema. Right, you fucker, I'm going to do the washing up. You're looking very beautiful, man. you little traitors. The film’s most celebrated line may be Withnail’s war cry in a Penrith tea shop: “We want the finest wines available to humanity! … Well... not that weird. “We’ve all had to grow up at some point and get real. Withnail & I - Full Movie | 1987 - YouTube. After barely making a ripple when it was first released, Withnail and I has come to be seen as one of the best British films ever made. If you don't remember the sixties, don't worry — neither did they. Nothing much happens in it, and there is no reason why Withnail and Marwood shouldn’t stay in touch, but when we see Marwood, with his flowing curls cut short, walking away from Withnail in the rain so that he can take the lead role in a play, we feel as if we’ve been on an epic adventure, and we’re now witnessing the death of a relationship and an era. Withnail & I Filming Locations in the Lake District, UK. Once you’re an adult, perhaps moored by a family, a job and a mortgage, Withnail And I reminds you just how poor, hungry, hungover, and disgustingly unhygienic you were in your younger days. I assure you I'm not [drunk], officer, honestly. It's wearing a yellow sock. London, 1969 - two 'resting' (unemployed and unemployable) actors, Withnail and Marwood, fed up with damp, cold, piles of washing-up, mad drug dealers and psychotic Irishmen, decide to leave their squalid Camden flat for an idyllic holiday in the countryside, courtesy of Withnail's uncle Monty's country cottage. 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