"Withnail and I": A Boozy, Bleary, Beautiful Disaster, Screens in Great Barrington March 25

There are films you watch once, enjoy, and never think about again. Then there’s Withnail and I—a film that, much like its titular protagonist, lingers, loiters, and refuses to leave. Bruce Robinson’s 1987 cult masterpiece is the crown jewel of cinematic dissolution, an existentially hilarious and deeply tragic portrait of two out-of-work actors swirling down the drain of 1969 London. For those who know, it’s a rite of passage. For those who don’t, it’s high time to get initiated.

Boondocks Film Society, purveyors of cinematic revelry and experiential moviegoing, are pouring one out for this singular film with a screening at The Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington March 25.

The film follows Withnail (Richard E. Grant, in an all-timer of a performance), a swaggering, tattered dandy of the highest order, and his nervous companion, the unnamed “I” (Paul McGann), two failing actors marinating in their own failure. Cold, broke, and ravaged by self-inflicted squalor, they abscond to the countryside to clear their heads—only to find a new set of problems in the form of rain, hostility, and Withnail’s lecherous Uncle Monty (the magisterial Richard Griffiths).

It’s a comedy in the darkest sense. The laughs are plentiful, but they’re the kind that catch in your throat—especially when you realize that beneath Withnail’s bombast and bluster is a man who has well and truly destroyed himself before his life has even begun. Few films have ever captured the wretched, glamorous allure of self-destruction quite like this. Even fewer have done so with dialogue this deliciously quotable. (“We’ve gone on holiday by mistake!” is up there with Casablanca’s “Here’s looking at you, kid,” if your tastes lean toward the dissolute and deranged.)

Despite the rampant debauchery, Withnail and I is ultimately a story about endings—the end of youth, the end of an era, the end of a friendship. The London of 1969 is on the cusp of something new, and these two wrecks are utterly unprepared for it. By the time the credits roll, the inevitable comedown arrives, leaving Withnail in the rain, reciting "Hamlet" to an audience of caged wolves. It’s heartbreaking, it’s perfect, and if you have a soul, it will haunt you forever.

For Withnail and I fans, this Boondocks event is the ideal pilgrimage—a gathering of the faithful, reveling in this boozy, bleary masterpiece as it was meant to be seen: communally, with drinks in hand. For the uninitiated, consider this your invitation into one of cinema’s greatest, strangest cults.

Just don’t forget your coat. It’s cold out there.