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copyright ©1999-2003
DigsMagazine.com.
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Plot synopsis
Withnail
and the unnamed “I” are two out-of-work, struggling young actors
sharing a run-down, rat-infested apartment in London in 1969. Cynical,
semi-aristocratic Withnail can’t understand why he can’t even manage
to get an audition, and “I” is a wreck of nerves as he waits to hear
whether he’s landed a role. They’ve run out of money; there’s no
heat in their flat; they’re sick and tired of scrounging for their
bare necessities in life: namely food, wine, and drugs. So they decide
that a short retreat from the big, cruel, ugly city is in order, and
manage to convince Withnail’s eccentric, gay, and very wealthy uncle
Monty to let them borrow his cottage in the countryside. But Withnail
and “I” find that the quiet countryside isn’t quite the cure-all
to their problems that they’d hoped for. Between the lack of food,
their drug-induced paranoia, and the fact that the two city boys have a
genuine and unerring knack for unintentionally pissing off and
bewildering the locals, the boys soon find that they’re as miserable
out in the middle of nowhere as they were back home. Added to which,
there’s the little fact that
unbeknownst to “I,” Withnail’s obtained the keys under somewhat
false pretenses. When Monty shows up unexpectedly one evening, his
boisterous, unwelcome presence throws another wrench into an already
rather disastrous vacation
Review
Withnail
and I
is the sort of funny that makes you quietly snort and squeal random
delighted “heee!”s, rather than the kind of funny that leaves you
rolling on the floor with tears streaming down your face. It’s
understated, dry, biting humor that sometimes doesn’t sink in until a
few seconds (or a few viewings) after the funny moment’s passed;
it’s subtle, not slapstick. In short, it’s very, very British –
low on plot, high on eccentric characters, chock-full of wit. Though
Richard E. Grant’s manic Withnail is the more outrageously, memorably
out-there crazy-funny of the two titular characters – he’s upstaged
only by the brief appearances of super-mellow, quasi-philosophical
drug-dealer friend Danny at the beginning and end of the story – Paul
McGann’s straight man “I” is what lends the movie its sense of
poignancy. There’s an underlying layer of genuine sweetness and
wistfulness beneath the laughs and silly antics. As you watch McGann’s
character evolve from the scruffy-faced, shaggy-haired dirtbag we meet
at the beginning of the movie to the clean-cut, fresh-faced young man
that waves goodbye at the end, what you realize is that this movie about
seemingly nothing is really a movie about the end of an era: on the
larger scale, the death of the 60s, on a more personal one, the final
days of wild, crazy wonderful youth.
—reviewed
by Yee-Fan Sun
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