Withnail & I

Withnail & I (1987) is Bruce Robinson's cult British tragicomedy you can watch online on iFILM. It's the tail end of the 1960s, and two unemployed actors are stuck in a filthy Camden flat where the money, the food and the patience have all run dry.

Withnail is a venomous, perpetually drunk would-be aristocrat who'll demand the finest wine in the grimmest pub. His flatmate Marwood — the unnamed "I" — does the worrying for both of them. Desperate to escape the city, they sweet-talk Withnail's flamboyant Uncle Monty into lending them his country cottage, only to land in freezing rain, an empty woodpile and Monty's uncomfortably keen interest in young Marwood. Richard E. Grant made his screen debut as Withnail, and the role turned into one of the most quoted performances in British film.

Robinson based the script on his own bohemian youth, and beneath the boozy farce sits a real ache: the end of a decade and of a friendship that won't survive growing up. People come back to it for Grant's lines and stay for the melancholy. It's for anyone who loves dry English humor pitched at the edge of despair. Stream Withnail & I (1987) online on iFILM.