The fundamental charm of Withnail & I lies in the dialogu...

The fundamental charm of Withnail & I lies in the dialogue, whose wit and eloquence have a redemptive capacity: we maintain dignity within ruin through the grace of our rhetoric. Perhaps this is the only way open to us when we are left with nothing but language. The pathos of the final scene hinges upon this idea. Withnail is utterly destitute, forsaken by everything but one of the most beautiful passages in Hamlet, which he bellows to the wolves. There’s a kind of dignity here very similar to Vladimir and Estragon’s, to Hamm and Clov’s. It’s also very similar to that of Lars and W on their inebriated lecture tour. However much they might fail as thinkers or writers, they can nonetheless acknowledge their inferiority with a crystalline deadpan humour; they have still encountered great beauty and flashes of truth, discussing Rosenzweig over a dive bar’s pooltable. W’s glorious insults of Lars are also a perverse form of esteem, as well as self-assertion. In this sense, the books seem to me as much about dignity as they are about friendship. Dignity achieved by a certain poise.

Fascinating meditation at Lexipenia on Spurious, Dogma, interviews I've done, taking in Withnail and I, Beckett, the question of non-male friendships, etc. ... 

Short review of Dogma by Alice at Moving Under Skies.