By Dennis Hartley
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 26, 2025)
Withnail & I (Criterion Collection)
Writer-director Bruce Robinson’s 1987 study of two impoverished actors slogging through 1969 London with high hopes and low squalor has earned a devoted cult following (guilty as charged). Richard E. Grant excels as the decadently wasted Withnail, ably supported by Paul McGann (he would be the “I”).
The two flat mates, desperate for a break from their cramped, freezing apartment and mutual descent into creeping fear and paranoia, take a trip to the country, where Withnail’s rich eccentric uncle (Richard Griffiths) keeps a cottage. There are so many quotable lines (“We want the finest wines available to humanity. And we want them here, and we want them now!” or “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake.”). Ralph Brown nearly steals the film as Danny the drug dealer.
Previous DVD and Blu-ray editions have been frustratingly problematic in terms of image and/or sound quality (I think I’ve owned them all), but the 2025 Criterion edition finally puts those issues to rest with a proper 4K restoration (granted, the film was purposely shot in low light and muted brown and grey tones to match the characters’ melancholic mood; still, this is the best print I’ve seen to date). Extras include two audio commentaries, a new short with Robinson and Grant, and Withnail and Us (1999), a documentary on the making of the film.