Two out-of-paintings actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic buddy, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment workplace and the pub. When they take a vacation "via mistake" at the us of a residence of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they stumble upon the ugly side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.