Withnail & I

Saw Withnail & I, a grotty sort of British comedy about two struggling actors who are constantly drunk, constantly penniless, but come from families which are basically too wealthy for them to actually get in any trouble. They flounder around hilariously being unable to even clean dishes without descending into wild, bizarre, drunken soliloquizing and shrieking hysteria. It feels a bit gay to me, this inseparable but dramatic duo, but I think it's supposed to be more of a throwback to the sort of unstated queerness of Laurel and Hardy and so on. They're not gay, just ridiculous.

The film makes its stance in regards to homosexuality much more explicit with the introduction of Morty, a fat old gay man who they sponge off of for a while and who obviously has designs on one of them. The character is florid and pompous, daintily hinting at youthful blowjobs at Harrow and so on. He's absurd and repulsive but also hilarious. The film is a sort of throwback to an older time, filmed in the 80s but featuring nuttiness fueled by drugs and marijuana ala the 60s and featuring a platonic comic duo ala the buddy films of the 40s. The Morty character is a specimen of the by-now extinct aesthetic homosexual, who powders his hair and paints his face and winkingly quotes Oscar Wilde and uses dainty euphemisms for almost everything. It sort of makes sense that this dinosaur of a character should be included in a film which is, itself, an anachronism.

I enjoyed the film but I didn't find it very funny. It was enjoyably manic and frantic and messy though and well worth a look. There's a hint of gayness to it which made it interesting to me so I wonder if it would hold up for someone similarly humorless but who has the misfortune of being straight. It's very frantic and funny though, so check it out maybe.