Review: 'Withnail and I: From Cult to Classic '

If you've ever found you've gone on holiday by mistake, drank a bottle of lighter fluid, or recited Hamlet's soliloquy in the rain while your only friend in the world drifted off to a successful acting career, you can relate to Withnail. If you've ever had to endure the madness of someone like that, you can relate to I (not I as in Mike Segretto; I as in Marwood). 

If you have any idea what I'm talking about, you may now or ever have been a member of the Withnail and I cult. Bruce Robinson's 1987 film is famously a comedy without jokes, yet as Toby Benjamin's new book on the film accurately observes, "every single line of the screenplay is superb," which I'd slightly amend to "every single line of the screenplay is superbly funny." Vulgarly funny ("I fuck arses"? Who fucks arses? Maybe he fucks arses!"), demandingly funny ("We want the finest wines available to humanity, we want them here, and we want them now!"), pathetically funny ("We've gone on holiday by mistake!"), insightfully funny ("They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's, man."), ominously funny ("If I medicined you, you'd think a brain tumor was a birthday present."), economically funny ("Scrubbers!").

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 141

The Date: February 18

The Movie: Withnail and I (1987)

What Is It?: A pair of wine-soaked drama students escape their vile London flat for a weekend in the country side. Utter hilarity ensues as they continue to imbibe at a prodigious rate, and demand the finest wines available to humanity, which they want here, and they want now. Richard E. Grant makes his star potential abundantly clear, but it’s Ralph Brown who steals the show as a drug dealer. When he spikes you, you’ll know you’ve been spoken to.

Why Today?: Today is Drink Wine Day.