Tony
Directed by Matt Johnson
Reviewed by Jeremy Elwood
It’s been six years since the world lost Anthony Bourdain, and the announcement of a film based on his life raised some understandable concerns amongst his many fans. Would it be a mawkish retelling of the end of his life, a overblown glorification of his cooking, or a hagiography of his television career? Bourdain was never a celebrity chef, but rather a chef who became a celebrity; he had more charisma than any TV cooking show winner, so how do you recreate the life of a man who, for many, has already lived his life onscreen and in print?
Thankfully, Tony goes back, well beyond the TV shows and even Bourdain’s breakthrough (and essential) book Kitchen Confidential. It tells the story of a 19-year-old Tony arriving in Provincetown, Rhode Island and finding himself working in his first kitchen, a small seafood shack run by a nameless “Chef”. It’s an origin story in the true “summer that changed my life” mould. And through that simplicity, and the strength of its performances, it’s an absolute gem of a movie.
As with any biopic, the film is a mix of fact and fiction. Bourdain really did work in several Provincetown eateries, including The Flagship, where Tony is set. In the film, he arrives in pursuit of a girl, armed with lies and embellishments. Again, much of this is based in truth, as documented in Kitchen Confidential (including one scene involving a not-so-blushing bride), and the girl (who eventually became his first wife, Nancy) really did work in the pizza joint portrayed in the film.
From there, the film begins to take liberties, but the spirit remains true to Bourdain’s descriptions of the time. Slowly, through both osmosis and certain defining events, he begins to cook and the rest, as they say…
Most of the central characters are composites, brought to life through exceptional performances. As Sal, who represents the oversexed, pirate-like denizens of the kitchen who populate Bourdain’s writing, Leo Woodall brings the same mix of charm, physical ease and underlying danger that made him stand out in series 2 of White Lotus. Emilia Jones (Task, The Running Man) isn’t given an awful lot to do, but as Nancy her appeal to, and reservations about, the insistent Tony are totally believable. The cramped Flagship is filled out by Monica Raymund, Micheal Jibrin and Stavros Halkias who convincingly conjure up the dysfunctional family dynamic that exists in kitchens, providing the calm at the eye of what can often be a truly chaotic lifestyle.
Predictably, the film rides squarely on Dominic Sessa as Tony himself, and Antonio Banderas as Chef.
The Kitchen Confidential quote that opens the film is going to be overused in reviews, but it’s almost unavoidable. Bourdain’s self-description: “I was—to be frank—a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking” is so clearly the starting point of Sessa’s portrayal, and he comes so very close to totally embodying it. As he did in his breakout role, in the underrated The Holdovers, Sessa blends wide-eyed naiveite with a quiet arrogance, an inner turmoil masked by cockiness and charm that feels entirely in line with the Bourdain the world came to know later. He’s an inveterate liar, a self-entitled brat and can be downright unlikeable, yet also disarmingly innocent. The only thing missing is the abovementioned “lout”; Sessa just feels a little softer and less dangerous than the young man Bourdain describes – an image, admittedly, that the author himself worked hard to portray. It’s a really small complaint, though, and Sessa capably owns the film – or would, if it wasn’t for a certain Antonio Banderas.
This is Banderas’s best performance in years. As we discover more about the mysterious Chef, his background, his previous life in kitchens around the world, and his love of the way food can anchor a life, Banderas quietly delivers a character far deeper than anything else in the film. He’s impossible to look away from – funny, forceful and heartbreakingly vulnerable. Banderas is still a beautiful human being, but he takes this chance to step out of leading man mode and into a far more nuanced, complex character, and completely owns it.
Director Matt Johnson shoots Provincetown beautifully, and deftly captures the wild mood swings of a working kitchen, but his biggest contributions here are to let the simplicity of the story breathe, and give his actors room to move. There is no big, dramatic moment where Tony suddenly falls in love with cooking. It happens gradually, and in the background, the way people actually find inspiration in the real world. He acknowledges that many of his viewers knows what happens next, have read it in Bourdain’s own words, so he doesn’t feel the need to explain or even resolve everything.
In many ways, it’s a much smaller film that the man himself became. But as a result, it embodies another quote often attributed to Anthony Bourdain, the one that begins “Eat at a local restaurant tonight…”
Think of Tony as your local restaurant, and book a table immediately.
Tony is in NZ cinemas from August 20th.