Everybody has a friend like Withnail. And everybody’s worked for a Dennis. That’s easy to see. It gets harder when, one day, you stare into the mirror and see either of them looking back. When that day comes, it’s time for a change.
Coincidentally, both characters are played by the same actor, Richard E. Grant, in the two movies of significance from writer-director Bruce Robinson. Conveniently, both have been restored and will be available on home video from The Criterion Collection this May. Let the connections begin.
I doubt Robinson, an actor turned filmmaker, pitched Withnail and I (1987) and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989) as a true double feature, but watch them in tandem and you’ll find Robinson and Grant riding the same wave all the way to the end. Oh, and here’s one more connection: Both films are set at the close of a decade — 1960s for Withnail and 1980s for Advertising — with little nostalgia looking back and less optimism peering forward.
I’m starting to make these movies sound like a couple of downers. They are, in a way, but they’re so suffused with life that they are undeniably hilarious and cling to the ribs long after the lights come up.
Of the two, Withnail and I has achieved cult status. Here, Grant plays an out-of-work actor and a professional alcoholic. He’s an angry young man railing against everyone and everything but nothing in particular. He comes from money, which fuels his habit, as does his drinking partner, flatmate and fellow aspiring thespian, I (Paul McGann).
The “I” is important. Withnail is Robinson’s memoir of the period in his life when he couldn’t get a job and spent his days at the bottom of a bottle with a chain-smoking boozehound who really did drink lighter fluid in a fit of desperation. Not that you need that nugget of biography to believe the movie. Every frame of Withnail excretes authenticity. It’s what makes the movie so damn enjoyable, even if it does verge perilously close to homophobia and derelict chic.
I love Withnail and I for all the wrong reasons and some of the right ones. Grant is so good in it, so believable, that you would be excused for thinking the movie captures an exorcism and not a performance. But Grant is a teetotaler allergic to alcohol, which makes his Withnail one of the greatest pieces of acting in all of cinema.
As to why How to Get Ahead in Advertising’s legacy hasn’t received the burnish Withnail has, the answer might again be Grant. It’s as if he and Robinson conspired to make Withnail so detestable the audience couldn’t help but find him endearing. For Advertising, they went for the jugular with Grant playing Dennis, a cynical ad executive who can sell anything but can’t, for the life of him, come up with a compelling pimple cream campaign. So Dennis pulls a 180, decides to quit the field and tell the world how men like him have corrupted every aspect of existence in the name of consumerism. But then a boil appears on Dennis’ clavicle, one that eventually grows a mouth and starts talking to him.
Dennis tries everything he can to rid himself of the demonic boil, but it grows until it’s the size of Dennis’ head, complete with a thin-lip mustache. To add insult to injury, Dennis’ initial head is reduced to a small boil on his shoulder, forced to play witness to evil Dennis’ conquest.
Advertising is a Jekyll and Hyde riff, and it’s as subtle as a kick to the groin. Dennis (both evil Dennis and less-evil Dennis) gives a lot of speeches about commerce, and Grant delivers them with conviction — particularly his hysterical climax in an English field that closes Advertising — but they sunk the movie upon release. I enjoy them for their unapologetic didacticism, but I also know a lot of people really detest being preached to when they go to the movies. Sadly, those speeches haven’t aged one iota in the past 35 years.
How to Get Ahead in Advertising would mark the last time Grant and Robinson worked together, a remarkable collaboration that began just two years prior with Withnail and I. A pity. They should have made dozens. At least we have these.
ON SCREEN: Withnail and I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising will be released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection on May 20.