“Unpacking the Genius: How ‘Withnail and I’ Crafted Lines That Resonate Across Time”
Perhaps the only universal human obsession that is not directly addressed is sex, and yet it is there throughout the film, hiding, as it were, in plain sight.
In the first instance, it is there in the character of Uncle Monty, the old and “raving homosexual” (as I/Marwood describes him) who pursues younger flesh, whether or not that younger flesh is interested in him. Ultimately it is there in the very last line of the film, in which Withnail quotes Hamlet to convey his Hamlet-like disgust with the world (including I/Marwood) that has rejected him: “Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither.” The fact that this brilliantly delivered soliloquy, which proves that Withnail really can act, is delivered only to the disinterested wolves at London Zoo says it all about Withnail’s so-called “career” as an actor and, arguably, human ambition in general.
