Matt Johnson can seemingly do no wrong at this point. The Canadian filmmaker who made the creation of an early mobile device fascinating with Blackberry, and hilarious fictional rock band comedy Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, takes on a challenge that is sure to earn him both scrutiny and praise in equal measure. For Anthony Bourdain is a beloved cultural icon; known as much for his wit, poetic ruminations on life, bravado, and wanderer’s spirit as for anything he ever put on the plate. That makes Tony, a film that recounts early chapters chronicled in Bourdain’s must-read book, Kitchen Confidential, a unique challenge. And yet Johnson, along with rising star Dominic Sessa, treads confidently into this surprisingly uplifting and human coming-of-age story.
In only his fifth major feature film role, Sessa captures a young Bourdain’s burgeoning confidence, arrogance, and undeniable charismatic nature. Bourdain is the kind of guy who can talk his into and out of just about anything. The film opens with him pitching a wild idea for a novel to fellowship committee members at Vassar, in hopes of a grant that will fund his path to becoming a renowned writer. He’s so cocky about it, he convinces his family that he already won the grant, in a bid to impress them more than anything else. More importantly, he’s also told the one girl he has the biggest crush on, Nancy (Emilia Jones), that it’s true, only to learn that she’s moving out to Provincetown for the summer.
Naturally, Tony doesn’t win the grant, and wallows in self-pity and defiance against the world. The only thing he can think to do is follow Nancy to Provincetown, to continue the lie that he had already started. Of course, that doesn’t work out quite as planned, either. One of the best things about Tony is that it’s not as predictable as one might expect, even as it doesn’t always feel like a movie about Anthony Bourdain. In some ways, it’s better the more one is able to disconnect it from Bourdain’s heartbreaking fate, even as there are some clear allusions to it.
The film really heats up when a drunken Tony gets thrown out for doing one of the things he does best…or worst, maybe. After inappropriately flirting with a bartender, he gets kicked out of a small seafood restaurant run by a tough but kindly unnamed chef, played by Antonio Banderas. This is the kind of joint that you can tell exists because the owner got sick of working for others and wanted to do things their way. It’s a tiny, borderline rundown shop with a cramped kitchen too small for the big personalities and bigger egos jammed inside of it. Tony talks his way into a dishwasher gig but, as usual, lies his way into more responsibility. Surrounded by the mouthy Dimitri (Stavros Halkias) and the womanizing Sal (Leo Woodall), who literally takes a notch from the door of every woman he sleeps with, Tony opens up in ways both good and bad.
Just as Tony comes alive with its array of colorful characters and gorgeous seaside, sun-kissed locales, Tony is shaped by those very things, too, more so than he can realize. With Sal’s mentorship, Tony becomes even more of a douchebag in some ways, although the screenplay and Sessa’s performance are careful to find a balance. He makes some pretty terrible mistakes, but they are informative errors, essential to his growth into the man we are familiar with later. More instructive is when Tony smartens up and starts paying attention to the positive influences in his life, and learns to embrace what he really hopes to be. In this life, you are what you do and not what you say. Tony can call himself a writer all he wants, but he spends his days and nights in the kitchen, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that. In fact, there’s something honorable in it.
As entertaining and heartwarming as Tony is, it also feels too small for a movie about Bourdain, whose life was so enormous. Also, it’s just a touch too sentimental when one of Bourdain’s greatest traits was his blunt honesty, to look at things as they are, not as one hoped them to be. That said, Tony serves up a delicious and rewarding meal. There’s perhaps a bigger Bourdain movie out there yet to be made, but there’s still plenty to savor about this one.
Tony opens nationwide on August 14th.
