You have to hand it to Matt Johnson – he works fast. Already still reeling from the success of Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, he already has his new movie Tony already in release. Read below for Paul Gratton’s reaction to TONY (I will have my reaction here next week when the movie opens in Victoria and in wider release!)
About: A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.
Reaction: This is a note-perfect coming-of-age story about a rebellious and still aimless young Anthony Bourdain, who aspired to be a writer at the age of 19, but ended up spending a fateful summer in 1975 working in a fast seafood restaurant in Provincetown, despite his apparent lack of interest in the culinary arts. His real motivation was to chase after a cute young woman he had a crush on, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit that to anyone. Bourdain has referred to himself during this period of his life as a young lout badly in need of an ass-kicking, and that just about sums it up. Chain-smoking, coke-snorting, lying to everyone, Tony is all belligerent attitude, angry at his well-meaning parents and pretending to be someone he wasn’t with everyone around him. In that respect, he was probably a typical 19 year-old during the turbulent 70s.
Canadian director Matt Johnson, who did such a good job telling the story of the founding of BlackBerry, not to mention the hilarious antics of Nirvanna, The Band, The Movie has a natural empathy when it comes to telling outsider aspirational stories. But he displays a new level of directorial mastery in this biographical look at a punk kid who became a very successful chef, a best-selling author, and a television guide to the cuisine of the four corners of the world. He hints at Tony’s soft edges and inherent curiosity, as the owner of the seafood cafe he works at (engagingly played by Antonio Banderas) takes him under his wing and introduces him to the joys of cooking. The kitchen staff he is introduced to are profane, drug-addled, and hilarious in their hard-driving embrace of a difficult lifestyle involving long hours and few rewards. The film feels and looks like something the new Hollywood brats would have made in the 1970s, with great use of music that sounds authentically 70s, while avoiding all the obvious needle drops from the era. Anyone intrigued by the Bourdain mystique will want to taste this exquisitely observed cinematic plat du jour. It truly seems to capture the essence of the teen, long before he became the man that we learned to trust and admire as he toured the world and shared his gustatory discoveries with us all.
Rating: 7 out of 10
