7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Camden Town, the arse-end of the sixties. Two struggling, unemployed actors decide some respite is in order and so depart their miserable flat for a week in the Lake District – one that will involve rain, booze, minimal supplies, a randy bull and an even randier Uncle Monty.
Starring: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown (I), Michael ElphickDrama | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
People—especially the bourgeoisie—tend to lump all Bohemians into a single, sweaty, disheveled category. In reality, the free-living artist class is actually much more diverse, from dandyish fops and spacey, New Age-y types, to granola-munching tree huggers, trust-fund lay-abouts, and wannabe Jack Kerouacs. If there’s one quintessential Bohemian archetype, though, it has to be the out-of- work actor, down on his luck, just scraping by, and living in some sort of squalid hovel that still manages to look opulent, as if occupied by an old-money aristocrat who’s fallen on hard times. Shunned at casting calls and rejected at auditions, the unemployed thespian turns his very life into a particularly juicy role, the role he was born to inhabit. The quest to make rent is turned into a play worthy of Ibsen, the desperate scramble for booze a one-act with an unhappy ending. The commonplace is melodramatized and the jobless stage player often spouts soliloquies to an audience of no one. It’s life turned into depressing, yet depressingly comic, art. Writer/director/actor Bruce Robinson knew this life intimately—he struggled to “make it” as a thesp during the 1960s—and in 1987 he turned his experience into Withnail and I, a semi-autobiographical film that has since gone on to become a British cult classic.
"How do we make it die?"
Previously released by Starz/Anchor Bay U.K. on a 50 GB Blu-ray disc, Image Entertainment brings Withnail and I stateside on a single-layer platter. The differences between the two, however, appear to be negligible. (Check out our review of the U.K release, here.) Given a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer and framed in a screen-filling 1.78:1 aspect ratio—slightly cropped from the original 1.85:1— the film looks decent considering its low-budget origins, but I can't help but feel that it could be better. Clarity is rather inconsistent throughout the film, with some scenes showing a good deal of fine detail and others looking noticeably soft and indistinct. It could very well be that this can be traced to the source print, but it also seems that some mild DNR—and I do mean mild, it's never egregious—has been used on certain sequences, which also contributes to the softening of texture. The slightly greenish shift of the U.K. release has been corrected here for more natural color reproduction, and while you won't find much vividness on display here, the muted palette is well in line with the film's tone. Black levels are a bit more problematic, often looking hazy, grayish, and overridden with noise. There are some slight compression issues, mostly apparent in the darker scenes, but nothing too distracting. Overall, Withnail and I could probably look better, but fans in the U.S. have no cause to feel slighted by this release. It's certainly miles better than the dreadful 2001 Criterion DVD release of the film.
The sole audio option on the disc is an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 mix that seems to faithfully reproduce the film's soundtrack. (The U.K. release also included a 5.1 expansion of the original sound elements.) Besides a mild hiss that pops up now and again—one that was almost certainly present in the source materials and not introduced later—the track is clean and unmuddled. Obviously, dialogue is the focus here—and what crackling dialogue it is—but occasionally the track blooms with period pop tunes from the likes of King Curtis, Jimi Hendrix, and, in a rare cinematic appearance, The Beatles. (George Harrison, who co-founded HandMade Films, served as a producer.) The music sounds excellent—it's got drive and heft—and my sole, and minor, complaint is that the saxophone solo during "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a bit harsh in the high end and caused me to tamp down the volume a few notches. Otherwise, no overt audio errors here.
Here's where previous releases of the film have the definitive edge over Image Entertainment's disc. The Criterion DVD and the 2009 U.K. Blu-ray from Starz both contain numerous documentaries, featurettes, and commentaries, whereas the only thing you'll find here is a single standard definition theatrical trailer that runs just shy of a minute and a half. Obtaining the rights to bonus features can be tricky and expensive, so I'm not really surprised, but it is a shame this release is so bare-boned.
Withnail and I is a darkly comic slice of Bohemian life that captures the spirit of a very specific time—when the happy hippy heyday of the 1960s descended into squalor toward the end of the decade. It's deeply, smartly funny, immensely quotable, and stands up well to repeat viewings. British fans have made a drinking game out the film—you've got to take a drink of everything Withnail imbibes, substituting vinegar for lighter fluid—but I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got a gut of steel. The film itself, though, comes highly recommended.
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