I demand to have some booze!

Withnail and I (1987)

I’m stuck stuck stuck on this movie. So stuck that I’m going to keep on talking about it till I get a whole lot of others stuck on it too.

And I’m not planning to stop any time soon.

Here’s a movie that hardly has any plot to speak of. If you want me to be really precise, I’d say it has one which can be summed up in a line or two: Two out-of-work actors, who booze all day, decide to go to the countryside on a holiday. And then some stuff happens.

Yes, that’s about it.

Not impressed?

Read on.

What this movie has, are characters. Characters who you wish were real. Characters who you want to be friends with. Characters with whom you’d love to raid every pub in town and drink till you can’t tell between a taxi and your grandma.

When was the last time you felt like that after watching a movie?

First, there’s Withnail (played by Richard. E. Grant in what turned out to be his breakout role). He drinks like there’s no tomorrow. He smokes like a chimney. And he’s bitter - about everything. Sometimes it’s the cold that gets his goat. Sometimes it’s the fact that actors, who he thinks are far inferior to him, are all over television while he’s jobless. Sometimes it’s because he’s run out of booze. But on most occasions, there’s no reason at all. He’s just bitter – plain and simple.

Then there’s Marwood, the ‘I’ of Withnail and I (Paul McGann). He’s the one with whom Withnail shares his apartment in London’s Camden Town. Another struggling actor, and his drinking mate, he’s sort of mellow and seems somewhat in control. He’s also genuinely concerned about Withnail. Like, when Withnail, failing to find any liquor in the house, gulps down a bottle of lighter fluid, it’s Marwood who stops him from going after the bottle of antifreeze by shouting, "You bloody fool, you should never mix your drinks!"

Danny the drug dealer (Ralph Brown) is, in Marwood’s words, ‘the purveyor of rare herbs and prescribed chemicals’. He’s perhaps the closest thing to a friend that Withnail and Marwood have, apart from each other. And let me say this for the record: Right now, Danny is my favourite character ever (living/dead/real/fictional). He’s the one with whom I want to sit down and discuss things – for the rest of my life. Be it personal stuff or NASA’s space programme, I just want to sit down with him and talk, over a ‘Camberwell Carrot’ maybe. And I know that he’ll have an answer to all my queries. I just know it.

In a particular sequence, Withnail rants about some hairdresser who wouldn’t give him a haircut. In response, Danny speaks these now legendary lines: “I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials. They pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain. This is the reason bald-headed men are uptight."

How can you not love this guy?

The other major character would be Withnail’s homosexual uncle Montague (Richard Griffiths). Uncle Monty, as he’s called, is a garrulous and affluent old man living all alone, with just a cat for company. Having developed a hobby of growing roots, he has taken a special liking towards ‘firm, young carrots’. It’s his cottage in the countryside where Withnail and Marwood go to spend their holiday, and where a major chunk of the action unfolds.

The movie can be summed up as a collection of interactions between these four characters, and a couple of minor but extremely memorable ones. What you get out of these interactions are some of the most memorable dialogues in movie history. In fact, this movie has so many that it’s quite a task remembering them all.  In UK, where Withnail and I is nothing short of a certified cult, a lot of the dialogues have become part of daily usage. That includes the one which has been used as the title of this piece.  

Withnail and I was written and directed by Bruce Robinson. The character of Marwood is based on him, while Withnail is based on a flat mate of his. If you read up a bit, you’ll discover that the life which Withnail and Marwood are shown leading is not much different from the one he himself led in late-sixties London. What matters, is that he lived through it and managed to make this movie. And what a movie it is! Even though he was nominated for an Oscar for writing the screenplay of The Killing Fields, it’s still Withnail and I that he’s best known for. And I’ve got a feeling that’s never going to change.

What amazes me sometimes, is that he kept on making movies even after Withnail and I happened. I’m sure he had his reasons. But had he just hung up his boots and gone fishing forever, I don’t think anyone could’ve held it against him. When you create something like this, you earn the right to do so.

In one of the most hilarious scenes of the movie, Uncle Monty corners a petrified Marwood in his cottage (where he had ‘accidentally’ landed up in the middle of the night) and grabbing his arms, utters this gem of a line in all sincerity: “I mean to have you, even if it must be burglary.”

As that scene played out, I knew I was watching a movie that was really special. And that I certainly wasn’t watching it for the last time. 

PS. I’m still not sure which genre Withnail and I belongs to. You can say it’s a comedy, a semi-autobiographical movie, a buddy movie or even a coming-of-age movie. As for me, I’ll just call it a bloody awesome movie and leave it at that.