In many ways Bruce Robinson's Withnail and I is what the great and good British film industry is all about. It is an eccentric, intimate and well-written independent production that would never have seen the light of day in Hollywood.

| Apr 4, 2025

There is a certain kind of movie that gets praised not so much because of its virtues as because, in some strange way, we suspect that no one would ever dare make its like again. Withnail and I is one of those enterprises.

| Apr 4, 2025

If the film belongs to anyone, it is Richard E. Grant, who takes the dissolute and mannered character of Withnail and creates a Wildean creature of tragi-comic proportions, the like of which has not been seen in a British film for some time.

| Apr 4, 2025

If all of it was as funny as the best of it, the film would be a remarkable achievement. Even as it is, it deserves an audience, and recognition for Richard E. Grant as an outstanding comic actor.

| Apr 4, 2025

A little gem of a film, rich in humour and observation, overflowing with superb displays of acting.

| Apr 4, 2025

At a time when we've been flooded with nostalgia for the '60s, Withnail and I is to be praised for its balanced remembrance of an age that could be as depressing as it was exciting, and as bleak as it was brilliant.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 4, 2025

There's a quirky lyricism to Withnail and I that enchants if you're in the mood to let it.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 4, 2025

Both leads, Richard Grant and Paul McGann, are new to film, and because they give such confident, controlled comic performances, it seems near-impossible that they're not already established stars.

| Apr 4, 2025

Withnail and I is not the whole story of the 60's. It's a small, wise, breezy footnote.

| Apr 4, 2025

Withnail and I tries to take black comedy to the limit and merely ends up black and blue.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 4, 2025

Self-destruction has never been more articulate or refreshingly amusing.

| Apr 4, 2025

[Bruce Robinson] presents his actors with a superbly scripted story as a springboard for one of the most memorable British films of recent times.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2025

A '60s joy ride about to tailspin into the sobering '70s. Emerging from the crosscurrents are as amusing a raft of characters as you could wish to behold.

| Apr 4, 2025

[Bruce Robinson] writes juicy dialogue. His two leading actors, Grant and McGann, are just dandy as the dissipated duo. Griffiths is funniest of all as the pretentious, pink-cheeked Monty.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 4, 2025

Writer-director Bruce Robinson displays a seriously warped sense of humor that's hard to reconcile with the fact that he wrote The Killing Fields. This is a startling and impressive film debut for all concerned.

| Apr 4, 2025

Withnail and I is a witty comedy, but not an antic one. In fact, it might take you a while to decide that it's a comedy at all. But it's slyly rewarding, worth staying with.

| Apr 4, 2025

It is consistently witty on the highest level, both as a wry valedictory of the '60s, and -- more universally -- as a very funny, very moving farewell to youth at any time. See it at all costs.

| Apr 4, 2025

The movie is doggedly raunchy and brutally funny, so that the sadness of it all is not immediately apparent.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 4, 2025

Beneath its appealingly odd trappings, however, Withnail and I proves to be hollow and paranoid.

| Apr 4, 2025

I am not sure that I like this unkempt evocation of druggy London town near the of the swinging '60s... But like many current movies I don't particularly like, Withnail and I manages to make me believe in it implicitly.

| Apr 4, 2025