Withnail & I
1987
Directed By:
Bruce Robinson
Starring:
Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths
"Such a special, special film, one that I can watch and re-watch and always find something new about that’s beautiful or touching or just very funny. It’s been like a friend wandering alongside me for the last 30 odd years, popping up every now and then to remind me of it’s scruffy, crumpled charm.
I first saw it with Justine back in the 80’s when we were students and then it became a kind of model for mine and Alan’s oddball existence in pre-boom Notting Hill in the 90’s. We watched it so many times the old VHS tape snapped and in many ways it provided a kind of back-cloth to the world of the first Suede album; it’s wonderful broken, ash-strewn grammar scattering itself over the songs.
There are so many quotable lines and in fact one of the reasons the film is still so vital is that much of the dialogue has become part of the fabric of many people’s language. Like so many of us of a certain age sometimes when the band are working we will find ourselves accidentally tumbling into an exchange of Withnail quotes, the writing still so pithy, still so very alive.
Despite all the hilarious moments my favourite is probably the final part in a soggy Regent’s Park. It’s a beautiful, moving scene that still brings a lump to my throat, the two friends muttering their last goodbyes in the bitter London rain, the path of their friendship at a cross-roads, their lives changing."
- Brett Anderson exclusively for The Insatiable Ones Film Club, 2020
Film Club Event Date:
1 May 2020