Matt Johnson’s second film of the year may not become as much of a cult classic as NTBTSTM, but it is still a great watch writes Carter Smith
It’s the summer of 75 — Bruce Springsteen is getting ready to dominate radio stations across the globe with his album Born to Run; parents across the world are thinking twice about a summer holiday near the seaside after Steven Spielberg’s bonafide classic Jaws traumatised all types of cinema goers; and a 19-year-old Anthony ‘Tony’ Bourdain has run away from his home only to end up stuck washing dishes in a chaotic kitchen.
It’s not quite the dizzying heights he imagined himself for that summer break. Tony (Dominic Sessa) had large aspirations. Ideally, he would be in the big apple, writing his novel and riding off into the New York sunset with his high school crush Nancy (Emilia Jones).
The reality of the matter goes more like this — he is awakened by a chilling bucket of water over the face by his Chef (Antonio Banderas); he spends his day at Chef’s restaurant in exchange for the hammock he sleeps on and he gets into trouble with fellow kitchen staff and resident bad boy Sal ( A career best performance from Leo Woodall).
As for Nancy, she is being lied to. Constantly. In her eyes, Tony has coincidentally found himself in the same place she is residing for the summer after wining the writing placement. It’s a facade only made more extravagant by Tony digging himself into a deeper hole each time he has the chance to come clean.
It’s not a good summer for Tony. A real ego bruiser. Bless him.
It’s hard to believe from such self sabotaging beginnings that Bourdain would end up being such a success. Nothing of his early lackadaisical attitude particularly screams acclaimed chef and best selling author of which he ended up being. A few punches in the face will do that to you.
For those reasons, Matt Johnson’s Tony is a journey worth going on. Taking place during this summer of self-actualisation we get to see the shift from — in his own words — “A spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive young lout and badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” to the successful man he became.
Too many modern biopics rely on the name it is focussing on being enough. The sheer magnitude of the person they choose to tell a story from often gives the creators a licence to phone it in. Why bother telling a coherent stroy when you can pack the runtime with easter eggs and key jingling?
Of course that has its perks, and I’d be lying if it isn’t entertaining, but once the credits roll you are left with nothing of substance.
Tony is different. Perhaps a risky choice, but it feels quite far removed from Bourdain himself. The growth of Tony is at centre stage, not little references to his future life. You could switch out the name for any other and you’d still have a fantastic coming-of-age story which is as charming as it is bittersweet.
It goes to show how far biopics have sunken that character growth and prioritising the story seems like a foreign concept. I blame Bohemian Rhapsody.
I didn’t know who Bourdain was going in – I’m the furthest from a foodie you can get – but I found myself as engaged as I am a Straight Outta Compton where I understand every little reference they are making. I never felt a lack of context.
Which is the biggest credit to Johnson. Though there’s nothing genre defining – I imagined he saved that for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie – it’s witty script and impressive ensemble is more than enough to make this an interesting watch.
Namely Dominic Sessa as Tony himself. Despite it not being to dissimilar to his rebellious breakout role in The Holdovers, he is fantastic. His curly hair and fake-it-until-you-make-it attitude feels as if he was ripped straight out of the 70s.
As biopics go, Tony definitely stands as one of the better ones. There’s no over reliance on the celebrity name, it’s just a well made movie that understands what not to do when it comes to biopics.
Which is a shame, because there was a joke which used Bourdain and boring in there somewhere which I would have loved to use.
- Tony is available to buy on Youtube
