Withnail & I

[School of Movies 2022]

A cult British classic made in 1987, set in 1969 and an utter failure at the box office. With the advent of affordable videos in the 1990s this one later became very popular with students who warmed to its story of two out of work actors living in ridiculous squalor. It's insanely quotable and darkly funny if you have the corresponding frequency of humour (I think I'm going to use this term in future. It's not a binary thing and that misconception is used all too often as a limp shield for crappy comedian behaviour).

Richard E. Grant plays Withnail, a persistently drunken, excessively verbose drama queen. Paul McGann play's "I" (whose uncredited name is Marlowe) a mousy, skittish neurotic afraid of being attacked by a hostile world of beefy, aggressive men. 

Together the pair of them borrow Withnail's Uncle Monty's cottage in Penrith and have an impromptu holiday to escape their troubles, only to find they have brought them along too. They are pitiful wretches and we should loathe them, but it's easy to feel sympathy and empathy all the same.

This one deals with some confused issues of unexplored homosexuality and predatory behaviour (fuelled by the writer/director's own unfortunate experiences as a young man), so you may have to bear with it until the full context is unfolded. But it would be entirely understandable if you want to put a pin in this for later.