Hadn’t seen this since about when it first came out, thousands of years ago, but it was good. Very slow start though, it doesn’t really get going until the two out of work actors get out to the country house where the sort-of gay farce plot happens. The bit at the start where they are frightened of potential animals in the filthy washing up just seemed very weird indeed, I was thinking who on earth are these idiot people (despite knowing already, from seeing it before). I was also thinking when is this going to get more engaging and exciting to watch.

Then the relationship between Withnail and “I” develops under the challenges of their stay in the country, and the arrival of Uncle Monty, and the unfolding of the gay farce events, and by the end of the film everything has changed and become all about nostalgia and significant people one meets in one’s early adulthood (although Withnail says he’s nearly 30) and how the revolution of the 60s was lost (from the perspective of the 80s when this was made, although from the mid noughties I’d say it has reared its head again and then some), and how and why some people succeed in life and other people fail even if they are talented, maybe because they are unhappy, or addicts, or maybe because they are just missing something simple like the need to be nice to people, or persevere. It’s poignant, and I like that in a story.

Also it’s beautifully shot, they take great care with the 1969 details and scenes, the sense of change from the aged decaying post-war hangover (very different in Europe than in the US, this time was), into the modern future, and the old cars on the new motorways, that sort of thing, all very nice indeed. I’ve not seen any other film similar to this one at all. The philosophising drug seller is good too, with his resignation about the future: They’re selling hippy wigs in Woolworth’s now. That was why the 80s was so depressing, it was all nukes and money and shoulder-pads and no hope of anything fun or gentle ever again. Ha.