Tony is not Bourdain

 

I expected to find something of Anthony Bourdain in Tony. I found little to nothing. There are no traces of the brilliant narrator we came to know on television. There is barely a distant echo of the "punk" from Kitchen Confidential, that book that opened the door to the basement of restaurant kitchens and the dark side of chefs. Tony takes a few pages from Bourdain's book and takes far too many liberties.

Antonio Banderas’s performance is surprising. His maturity as an actor continues to reveal the best in him. Almodóvar's Pain and Glory already made it clear that Banderas had evolved into a solidly profound performer. In Tony, he confirms it once again. Dominic Sessa doesn’t look like Anthony Bourdain at first glance, and that is not a flaw. Credit must be given to director Matt Johnson. The character is not yet Anthony Bourdain. He is still Tony. A nineteen year old kid. Sessa plays exactly that: a young man who uses lies to build his own myth, lies that quickly crumble. His erratic steps lead him to Provincetown, Massachusetts. There, a job as a dishwasher pushes him into the culinary world. Someone who wanted to be a writer but ended up becoming a chef and a storyteller. 

Many of the characters from Kitchen Confidential end up merged and reinvented into Banderas’s and Leo Woodall’s characters. Johnson shows how the future Anthony feeds on both while plunging into the world of kitchens, alcohol, drugs, and sex. Johnson’s craftsmanship is evident in every shot. His devotion to Bourdain, however, is almost absent. It is even said that Johnson knew little or nothing about Bourdain. His true interest was the construction of adolescent myths and the way a character is forged by imitating external role models. Perhaps that excessive vulnerability, as portrayed by Matt Johnson's Tony, holds the key to Anthony's tragic end. 

Tony does not work for Bourdain fans, as is my case. But that doesn’t stop it from being a good story. A story that borders on Hemingway. An independent film about a young man trying to invent himself.