Help me like this, please?

[deleted]

Smoke some weed.

bigtonk

The movie's been made, released, found its audience and cemented its legacy. There's no need for you to like it.

I think you've missed the boat. Most lovers of withnail will have discovered it on their own and watched without the build up and preconceptions. Going into it with all the hype and claims of "genius" I can see why it doesn't live up to people's expectations.

Bruce Robinson himself has described Withnail & I as a badly-made film with some great dialogue, which I think sums it up perfectly. It's not a "funny ha-ha" film with gags and set-pieces aplenty, rather the humour is accumulative, and comes almost entirely from the characters and the dialogue.

Pay attention to the characters, what they say and how they say it. It will either all click into place or it won't. If it doesn't, you won't be a lesser human being for it, it just means that the film clearly isn't for you. Don't sweat it.

Make tea, not war.

Most of the people who are fond of this film love it so dearly that they find comments like yours utterly incomprehensible.

I know that's not exactly helpful, but I think this thread's been about as helpful as it could have been under the circumstances. One fellow's suggestion about smoking wasn't a bad one. Though I do take exception to another poster's comment that this isn't a "funny ha ha" movie.

If this movie doesn't qualify as "funny ha ha" then the designation is absolutely worthless. Film comedies that authentically generate actual laughter are rarer than pearls, in my experience. This one does that in spades.

But you're right -- it is somewhat disjointed, though I've never found it unclear. The chaotic nature of the main characters' existence demands that they (a) have plenty of booze, etc. and (b) survive any way they can. In the meantime, they cozy up with Monty, go on holiday by mistake, unsuccessfully look for acting work, get pinched for "drunken driving" and learn not to mix drinks.

I'm trying to think of another film that takes something as simple as being evicted from a tea room into something screamingly funny. I can't. This movie is a bit like a virus -- once you've been infected, words that were previously harmless become high intensity joke bombs.

"Cake. And fine wine."

Before I'd seen Withnail & I, these were just simple words. Now they reduce me to a gibbering idiot.

Perhaps it helps to have been broke in the city and living in squalor in one's youth? And to have been surrounded by scummy wierdos and have attenuated morals? These guys are in a special class and if you haven't ever spent time with their sort, it may be hard to get into the mood.

Yeah, I think unless you've lived like them (I haven't) it's hard to relate to these characters. I still found it reasonably funny at times, but I never really got into it the way others seem to.

The English, and English actors especially, have a grand tradition of drinking to excess and wallowing in the squalor that comes with it. I assume the characters are realistic to a degree, but the lifestyle is so foreign to me, I (like Monty) found them pretty impenetrable.