**Disclaimer – before seeing this film my knowledge of Anthony Bourdain was his appearance with my favourite chef Nigella Lawson on the reality show “The Taste” so please excuse my ignorance about any of his acheivements.
Anthony (Tony) Bourdain was a larger than life character, a chef, a lover of food, drinks and travelling the globe, how do you capture that entire life in one single film? Fortunately Matt Johnson’s biopic Tony decides to just focus on one moment in his life when he first falls in love with cooking and discovers what he wants to do with his life, it covers the first few chapters of his book Kitchen Confidential, one one summer where Bourdain runs away to Provincetown and is forced to work at a seafood restaurant to make some money before going back to college.
We are introduced to Bourdain as an egotistical scruffy street smart guy who chases his high school crush to Provincetown. He is applying for a writing scholarship, his father adores him, his mother sees through his bullshit, in an act of desperation he runs away to Provincetown with a small amount of money in his pocket, determined to find the girl he is chasing in the small coastal town. Safe to say, things don’t go to plan and he ends up sleeping in a hammock on the verandah of local chef Ciro (Antonio Banderas) and working in his seafood restaurant to pay for his accommodations. In his spare time, he attempts to woo Nancy (Emilia Jones) at various parties and events across the town. Most of the times he is accompanied by his friend at the restaurant Sal (Leo Woodall) an even more off the rails character who has a knack of getting the pair into trouble.
Things don’t go to plan and Sal and Tony are forced to choose between staying out all night or being able to function at work. Tony has to make the tough choice and chef Ciro takes the confused Tony under his wing and introduces him to the basics of the industry, and the connection between people and food that Bourdain would then go on to be famous for.
Tony is surprisingly the least traditional style biopic that has ever been made. Instead of trying to tackle his long spanning career, it smartly chooses a specific moment in Bourdain’s life, the summer that started it all, and focuses in on who he was before he became the legend and what motivated him to dive into the world of food. The film doesn’t resonate in sentiment or have any of those key phrases or defining moments, if you did not know who Bourdain was (like me!) this simply presents as a summer college drama about a lost teenager transitioning into becoming a man through food and misfortune.
The film’s setting and the performances from the cast are really what sells this film. Dominic Sessa’s Bourdain is cocky, a jerk, a bald-faced liar that when push comes to shove, you can’t help but root for. He is messy, complicated and the spoiled middle class white kid who needs to fail repeatedly to truly find his way in the world. Leo Woodall is firing on all cylinders here as the equally messy yet more destructive oyster shucking friend who always takes things to the extreme. The endless scenes of Sal and Tony snorting lines in the kitchen, crashing parties and causing chaos in the small sea-side town are incredibly kinetic in this otherwise dramatic affair. Then there is Banderas, who is the clear Yoda style character, unafraid to take any of Tony’s shit and introduce him to the power of food and community. His understated performance and passion for his dormant cheffing skills make him the highlight of this film.
Tony is the surprise hit of the summer, a film that knows exactly what portion of the subjects life it wants to hone in and delivers it well. The film doesn’t overstuff the story trying to show the entirety of Bourdain’s life, it instead focuses on a sea-side summer, where he discovers who he wants to be and finds his purpose in a world where he was convinced he would have to swindle his way through. This is all under-pinned by incredible performances from all of the principal cast, clearly all in Golden Globe/Oscar territory with this film. For all of the spectacle about Bourdain’s life that happened after this moment, Tony feels like the perfect film to introduce his legacy to the world.
Tony is showing in cinemas from August 20.
