Withnail & I

"Endlessly quotable, touching, and funny, Withnail & I is a British cult classic about friendship, acting, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Prepare to enter the arena of the unwell.

"Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and 'I' (Paul McGann) are two resting actors, scraping a living at the fag-end of the 60s, holed up in a rat-infested London flat that looks like it last saw a duster sometime in 1749. In desperate need of a change of scene, they persuade Withnail's gay uncle, Monty (Richard Griffiths), to lend them his remote farmhouse. But the city boys are hardly equipped for country living.

"The semi-autobiographical film (Withnail & I has an air of authenticity only reality could give) raises smirks to belly laughs every other minute, but the chuckles give way to surprising pathos in the Shakespeare-quoting closing scene. Grant – a teetotaller – delivers the performance of his life as the doomed thesp, whether it be demanding the 'finest wines available to humanity', downing lighter fluid, or feeling like a pig shat in his head." (BBC)

Less