Johnson’s Tony feels like a warm, calm place by the sea in a hot Massachusetts Summer.
Matt Johnson’s Tony was a film I had been impatiently waiting to see since it was announced. Full transparency — I did not know a lot about Anthony Bourdain going into the film. A few months ago, I decided to give Parts Unknown (2013-2018) a shot to better understand Bourdain’s profound legacy and royal status to the general public, and I quickly understood why he was regarded as such an important figure to so many.
Anthony Bourdain was a renowned chef and author from New York who had a fascination with the human experience and came to explore this through multiple of his own television docuseries. He was an empathic and curious soul who truly loved food and sought out cuisines and experiences through travel that many will never get to in their lifetime. He died by suicide in 2018, leaving a powerful legacy about what it means to live.
His literary voice and narrative style felt poetic yet digestible, as if he almost unintentionally stumbled upon some of life’s greatest truths without missing a beat. What makes Bourdain stand out in popular culture is how many people have come to identify with him — some even in a parasocial way. Tony was met with a lot of feedback and criticism online throughout production, with many arguing that his portrayal would be almost blasphemous or disrespectful to his identity as a deeply knowledgeable, complex, and unfiltered person who experienced life in a way that felt inspiring. This film posed major challenges for Johnson’s reputation, as he was tasked with writing about a figure with an irreplaceable presence.
But Tony finds a way to take Bourdain’s origin story and dramatize it, giving the film the ability to stand alone, completely separate from Bourdain. Johnson fuses truth and fiction in a very compelling way, as it is noted that the film strays from directly portraying Bourdain’s origin story and rather looks for a way to blend elements of his life into a hopeful narrative about finding yourself. The film details a young man looking for love, navigating family dynamics, dealing with rejection, and finding his voice and identity in the face of adversity. More than a biopic, Johnson’s Tony feels like a coming-of-age story about learning to be open to what life has to offer and abandoning your plans in search of your identity.
While I normally don’t comment on a film’s context and production, I felt intrigued to learn, after watching, that Johnson was given the film, with Dominic Sessa already attached as Bourdain. Johnson knew very little about Bourdain’s life, and decided to move to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the film is set, to write and read everything Bourdain had ever written.
Sessa was specifically asked not to prepare and not to try to play Anthony Bourdain, making his performance feel authentic and allowing the film to feel some detachment from the concept of a biopic. The film takes events from Bourdain’s life and fuses them into a condensed semi-biographical narrative that strays from directly portraying the chef and author, in search of exploring his essence and goals in other ways.
Tony follows a young Bourdain who is a lost and aspiring writer who stumbles into a kitchen job during a Summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, following his crush, Nancy (Emilia Jones), after being rejected by a writing fellowship in New York City, which goes on to change the trajectory of his life.
Upon arrival, Tony stumbles into a job as a dishwasher at a seafood restaurant under a meticulous and traditional Chef (Antonio Banderas). Tony begins to work alongside a comedic group of characters, with Stavros Halkias as Stavros, and Leo Woodall as Sal, Tony’s older mentor of sorts, developing strong bonds with both. With no money and no place to live, Tony’s relationship with the Chef, who allows him to sleep on the hammock on his porch in exchange for his labour, becomes a pivotal aspect of the film’s plot. The film explores Tony’s development from a young and reckless teenager to a wiser and more trusted adult, exploring how the relationships in his life shaped his character.
Johnson expertly juxtaposes Tony’s reckless and egoistic decisions with the focus on the love of the kitchen. A scene that stood out to me in particular is when Chef and Tony go into the restaurant on their day off to make fresh ketchup and boil down seawater to create salt for the salt shakers. This scene’s silent reflectiveness brings peace in an otherwise chaotic movie. It is one of the few scenes where still observation is necessary, allowing viewers to sit with the dichotomy between Tony’s personal and professional life.
Further, Chef abruptly drags Tony from their shared home one evening to catch fish for the season, alongside countless other fishermen, who take advantage of the ideal fishing conditions of the specific Summer night. While the film heavily dwells on Bourdain’s personal shortcomings as a young adult, Johnson beautifully fuses the real elements of working at the restaurant that Tony comes to love. These scenes with Chef play a pivotal role in Tony’s character progression, with every conversation and scene being essential to understanding Tony as an individual. Antonio Banderas delivers a fantastic performance, offering a calm and almost poetic approach to cooking. He embodies the character in such a beautiful way that is bound to make viewers feel his happiness, frustration, and even devastation as his life ultimately changes forever when Tony arrives in Provincetown.
The film offers a sense of relatability that I loved, and I felt as though the hardships and infinitely important choices Tony faced felt relevant as a young adult entering society post-grad. Life is challenging, and the possibilities are endless, as reflected by Tony’s shift in goals that came with the life experience he gained and the people he met. But the film also offers a comforting growth seen in its characters, vibe, and story arc. Starting off as a fast-paced and messy story of Bourdain’s early life, it slowly grows into a reflective and melodic film that flows with every poor instinct Tony chooses to ignore in pursuit of something better for himself.
A significant element of the film is Tony’s romantic relationship with Nancy. But the thing is, Nancy is portrayed as this merely two-dimensional ‘cool-girl’ who acts as a reward for Tony’s decision-making. Her lack of realism is upsetting, as she is one of the very few female characters in the film. She is written as simply representing Tony’s sexual and romantic desires, hardly exploring her character as more than a goal that Tony feels he must achieve. While the film doesn’t explore many of the supporting characters' lives outside of their relation to Tony, Nancy is written as a woman who excuses Tony’s poor decisions and is unfazed by the negative things she experiences at his hands. I felt as though this character came to represent a fictitious and male-centred version of womanhood, lacking personal autonomy outside of a man.
Overall, Johnson’s Tony feels like a warm, calm place by the sea in a hot Massachusetts Summer. It feels like chosen family, and decisions where no choice feels like the right one. It is endless possibilities and the freedom of youth, experiencing young love and lust, and even learning to respect your elders. I felt attached to the film, and I think that the loose portrayal of Bourdain was one that painted his life’s circumstances in a way that felt realistic. With Bourdain searching for what home meant to him, it is clear that with every shift at the restaurant, he learned that being in the kitchen was the closest thing to it.
Tony is now playing in theatres.
Photo: Courtesy of A24
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