Withnail and I - A Beautiful British Farce
British cinema is a fascinating area of film, we have a tendency to enjoy stories of either people in the struggles of poverty or people in the height of luxury. For every British social realism film like ‘I, Daniel Blake’ and ‘Fishtank’, there is another Pride and Prejudice remake which I find inherently interesting. But its comedy where we really excel, British comedy is impossible to recreate as it blends deadpan with absurdist comedy with incredible precision. ‘Withnail and I’ is the accumulation of all these elements to create an astounding example of British Cinema.
The film is about nothing. The concept is stripped back and minimalist with an admirable focus on purely the performance, direction and writing. It revolves around two struggling actors who’s pompous exterior is contradicted by a life of addiction and poverty. In a desperate attempt to get out of the filth they live in they go on a holiday to the countryside. And that’s what makes this film stick with people, it’s the definition of a cult classic with a compelling yet simple narrative that focuses on vignettes of comedy rather than an overall extravagant narrative. You watch it for the characters, it’s like peering into this unfamiliar world that’s a delight to witness but you feel undeniable compelled, wanting to find out what’s going to happen to these fascinating characters. There is this fantastic blend of grounded absurdist humour, the film manages to utilise this deadpan quiet approach to its dialogue, whilst contradicting out with scenes where characters deliver Shakespeare soliloquies. It’s weirdly poetic when you watch ‘Withnail and I’ you get swept away in the way these characters act and speak that you never want to leave, this is due to the narrative structure and pacing that balances every element so well.
It’s all well mastering a genre and creating a hilarious script, but it’s the performances that make it. I love Richard E. Grant, and if you know me at all you’ll know about my unhealthy obsession with the actor. It absolutely blows my mind that this is his first feature film and he manages to create an iconic and complex character with consistent hilarity based purely in his performance and delivery. He never feels like a parody of actors, or a caricature, instead he creates this aggressively vulnerable man who seems to eloquently complain through life. He’s unpredictable with everything he does, and this makes him incredibly entertain to watch as he seems to cause problems consistently with this eccentricity that you can’t help love. Of course, every eccentric character needs a straight man and Paul McGann as Withnail’s counterpart is purely magnificent. He is every bit as broken and a disaster as his roommate which results in constant cycles of hilarious destruction between the two, they have excellent chemistry and McGann’s performance is sublime. He is the audience surrogate with moments of narration, yet he is just as flawed and full of eccentricity that he never feels boring. Rounding off the cast is veteran British actor Richard Griffiths as Monty, the satirical caricature of wealth that works as both a hilarious character and a fascinating thematic and narrative symbol. He works as the instigator to the disaster that our protagonists go through, and the way the film utilises him is really inventive, Griffiths is hyperbolic yet unsettling and it feels like a really interesting way to use a character narratively. Like Grant, his character feels like a character straight from a Shakespearean tragedy, with a use of language that creates this caricature of pompous that stands out like a sore thumb in this grimy world.
‘Withnail and I’ is one of those films which feels endlessly quotable, with visuals and ideas that will stick with you for a long time after watching. Every scene feels memorable, there's a moment or a line that will make you laugh in every scene and somehow that doesn’t distract from the films themes and narrative arc, the ending takes you by surprise and you don’t even realise how compelled you are in this world and with these characters. I find that the only flaws in its execution is how quick and established it feels from the standpoint, the film opens and trusts you to accept this world and tone. It can feel hard to get into on a first watch because nothing is held back, I admire a film that is proud to be what it is relentlessly, creating this beautiful poetically hilarious world right from the offset and maintaining it to the bitter end.