“Unraveling the Genius: How ‘Withnail and I’ Crafted the Most Iconic Lines in Film History”
‘Withnail and I’ (1987)
Great Dialogue
The second essential element of any great screenplay is great dialogue, and this is where Withnail and I really comes into its own.
If its plot is relatively ordinary, its dialogue is absolutely extraordinary, which is why I argued over a decade ago (an argument that I stand by today) that only Casablanca comes close to matching its seemingly infinite quotability.
The first exchange of dialogue in the film is mundane, involving I/Marwood asking (an unseen) Withnail whether he would like a cup of tea and Withnail (still unseen) replying, “No.” Yet in the café that Marwood decamps to, his first voiceover sets the tone for the flights of fancy, which are simultaneously poetic and defiantly prosaic, that he will often embark on during the rest of the film: “13 million Londoners have to cope with this, and baked beans and All-Bran and rape? And I’m sitting in this bloody shack and I can’t cope with Withnail. I must be out of my mind. I must go home at once and discuss his problems in depth.”
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