Withnail and I (1987)
Written & Directed by Bruce Robinson
The world is falling down around their heads. That’s the pervasive feeling of this semi-autobiographical film about a pair of friends in London circa 1969. They aren’t wrong; we know this due to the gift of hindsight. The end of the sixties marked a headlong dive into austerity, the setting of the table that is now coming to fruition in the United Kingdom today under Tory rule. England post-WWII had been building a robust welfare state, with institutions like the National Health Service becoming admired throughout the Western world. However, the forces of greed constantly scan the landscape and see every opportunity to rape & pillage, to ensure their survival and luxury at the expense of the working poor. Bruce Robinson understood that the hedonism of the sixties was in many ways a distraction from the coming bleakness, a practice the establishment took people’s eyes off the reforms that began post-War. And so Withnail and I is a mournful, often funny, elegy on a time of such promise that has rotted on the vine.
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