I can’t quite recall exactly when, but some time ago I was sitting at a table in the Cottage Bistro with JR McClelland, Lord and Lady Mule, and M’s sister Barbara. It was during a Roadbed show. At one point, someone asked what everyone’s favorite movie was. I remember I said ‘Apocolypse Now.’

That was the wrong answer.

I don’t exactly remember what everyone else said. I do recall that Barbara said she liked ‘Point Break,’ which is a much better answer, because it’s more honest. It’s exactly the kind of film one would adopt as a favorite (and I must say I liked it in spite of myself when I caught it on television one night).

As for me, what I should have said was ‘Withnail and I.’

‘Withnail and I’ was released in the late 1980s, and I saw it in the theatre with, of all people, JR. Since then I’ve seen it a number of times. Over the past two or three years alone I must have watched it about five or six times. Everytime I see it I laugh at a different line, or a different situation. It always makes me laugh out loud.

For those who don’t know, its storyline is simple. It is late September, 1969. Two thirtyish, out-of-work actors living in London decide they need to get away for a weekend in the country. One of them, Withnail (we never learn his first name), has a rich uncle (Monty) who owns a rustic cottage in the north of England. The other, ‘I’ (we never learn his first or last name), suggests they get the key to the cottage off Uncle Monty and head north.

And that’s it.

Well, not quite. They’re a heavily-boozing pair who get into one fix after another, each of which is blown into suitably theatrical proportions, all underscored by the fact that they, as ‘I’ puts it, “have drifted into the arena of the unwell, making an enemy of our own futures.”

Not long ago JR informed me that he purchased the DVD version of the film. He watched it, and found that it depressed him. Well, it never depresses me, and not because I think I’m somehow better off than its two lead characters. On the contrary, my personality is a combination of the worse traits of each of them. I’ve matched the paranoid, overly worried demeanor of ‘I’ with the self-absorbed, bitter frustration of Withnail, with less time to spare than either. And I have the housekeeping skills of both.

If anyone has drifted into the arena of the fucking unwell and made an enemy of his future, it’s me, and yet in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I love the film more all the time.

There are a few elements of the movie that keep me coming back to it. One is the dialogue, both the writing and the delivery. I think this is where you either get the film or you don’t (and many don’t). To me, even the most innocuous line is a masterpiece. In many films, much of the dialogue is simply an exchange of banalities, meant to further the plot. In some of the best comedies, the dialogue is constantly sparkling and witty. I don’t think the dialogue of ‘W&I’ fits quite into either category. The lines work because they suggest something in the characters’ personalities that you can relate to, or which at least makes them believable.

One thing I only recently noticed about ‘W&I’ is that there are basically no female characters. I like this. Both Withnail and ‘I’ appear to have drifted into a period where they’re spending too much time in male company. Some us have been there.

My dad used to tell me that looking for a job when you’re unemployed is difficult because “no one wants to hire you when you’re not working. They only want you if you already have a job. They always want to steal you off some other bugger.”

When it comes to relationships, women are like employers. They look for gaps in your resume. Our two lead characters are on the verge of being, romantically speaking, chronically unemployable.

(ahem)

The absence of women, and the presence of characters like the doped-up pseudo-philosopher Danny, underscores the fucked-up maleness of this movie. Is this something unique? Well, maybe not, but it’s done very well, and in a world of ‘Sex in the City’ chickfare, it’s as refreshing as a pint of ale and a quadruple whiskey.

The opening scene of ‘Withnail and I’ is set against a version of 'Whiter Shade of Pale,' performed by the late tenor sax guru King Curtis. The background music is one of the best things about the film. Actually, there are long stretches without music at all, and I love that too. But when music does come in, it is to maximum effect.

After the opening number, there is virtually nothing musical until Hendrix’s heavy but wistful ‘All Along the Watchtower’ cuts in as the lads head out of London in their beat-up Jag. Hendrix, in fact, bookends the lads’ excusion to the north country; on the way back we get the crashing intro to ‘Voodoo Chile,’ heralding a once-more-into-the-breach run down the motorway with a pissed Withnail at the wheel. In between, there is a piece of original soundtrack, a sweet, calming melody that hints at melancholy. We hear variations of it troughout the film, evocative and nicely placed.

The setting of Uncle Monty’s litttle northern cottage is perhaps my favorite thing about ‘Withnail & I.’ In Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day,’ there is a passage where the main character sets out on a drive across England. He is a serious, repressed butler named Stevens, and at one point, in his travel diary, he notes what he finds most appealing about the English countryside:

“....if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it. In comparison, the sorts of sights offered in such places as Africa and America, though undoubtedly very exciting, would, I am sure, strike the objective viewer as inferior on account of their unseemly demonstrativeness.”

I suppose we are meant to laugh a little at Stevens, but I’ve been all over England, including the north, and I actually think he’s onto something.

For all of 'Withnail & I’s misadventure and melancholy, there is also a calmer, underlying sense of pleasure and beauty. There is good food, there is booze. There is friendship, with all of the peculiarities of individual personalities that come with it. There is the beauty of nature, and the beauty of youth.

I think that’s what I like most about it, more than the angst and hijinx. Just the reminder that there are a few good things in life that are just there for the taking.




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There is a developing tradition around the viewing of ‘Withnail and I.’ I don’t think I’m the only one who practices it. That is, you have to have a drink or two while watching it. It’s kind of like getting dressed up to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show (not that I’ve ever seen that film....and do people still get dressed up for it?).

I’d suggest following the Withnail staple of slinging back a strong shot of hard liquor, accompanied by a nice, luxurious pint of some English ale.

And whatever you do, don’t water down your shot of gin or whiskey or rum by mixing it with pop (and no lighter fluid either).

Why?

Because I don’t advise it.



Chin-chin.