Withnail and I

Director: Bruce Robinson

1987 / 107min / DCP

Based loosely on writer/director Robinson’s memories of being a penniless actor in late ’60s London, Withnail and I stars Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann as two unemployed thesps and Camden Town flatmates—hard-drinking, dissolute Withnail and an unnamed “I,” respectively—who “go on holiday by mistake” at the Lake District home of Withnail’s pompous Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), and there commence a program of boozing, bickering, and baiting. Endlessly quotable (“We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!”), winningly splenetic and shambolic and, taken altogether, about as enjoyable a film of pills, thrills, and bellyaches as you’ll ever find.

Distributor: Janus Films

Part of Going Up the Country