why has “Withnail & I” become one of Britains biggest cult films?
Opening in London in the autumn of 1987, Bruce Robinson’s debut feature secured some good reviews but then discreetly disappeared from cinema screens without a fuss. Two years later, however, it was a word-of-mouth classic that had become a video shop treasure, an international hit, and one of the most quoted movies of all time. Based on Robinson’s own experiences of living as an out-of-work actor in Camden Town during the tail-end of the 60s, “Withnail & I” is a film that’s undeniably bleak yet also hilariously funny. As a character study it’s marvellous entertainment. Grant plays Withnail as a blue-blooded aristocrat fallen on hard times, a man who knows he ought to be wealthy, respected, and authoritative, but is actually a pauper living in a rundown North London flat with a terrifying pile of stagnant washing-up. Yet he refuses to let his impoverished circumstances impinge upon his sense of being part of the landed gentry. The chief pleasure of “Withnail & I” is in the writing – re
