Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Matt Johnson
Starring: Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall
40 years ago the names of chefs were only known to the wealthy. In the '90s and 2000s we saw the emergence of the "celebrity chef" with the likes of Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsey playing over-the-top versions of themselves on hit "reality" shows. The idea of a celebrity chef has died in our current age of "I know best," where the notion of someone being an expert in their field is now considered threatening to successive generations who expect participation medals. The late Anthony Bourdain stood out among the wave of culinary rock stars with his sincere approach, his belief that a cheeseburger had just as much value as a Kobe steak. He was propelled to fame by his 2000 memoir 'Kitchen Confidential'. That book read like a Scorsese movie (you could almost hear Keith Richards' guitar riffs as you read it), so it's surprising that it's taken so long for Bourdain's tale to reach the screen.
Known for his anarchic approach, Matt Johnson seems the ideal choice to bring Bourdain's story to the screen, or at least part of it. Tony details a formative 1975 summer in which Bourdain was taken under the wing of a veteran chef while working in the kitchen of a Provincetown restaurant.
"Tony" (the suggestion is that he would later mature into "Anthony") is essayed by Dominic Sessa, looking like a cross between a guitarist from a '70s New York punk band and the villain played by David Hess in Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. Full of piss and vinegar, Tony is the villain for much of his own story. As with the recent Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Tony isn't afraid to portray its subject as a pretentious and unlikeable asshole. The young Bourdain here is a narcissist who believes he's better than those around him. He considers himself a great writer, though we're given no evidence of any talent in this field, and he skips out on his family for Cape Cod without letting them know where he's headed. He badly needs someone to put some manners on him.
Bourdain finds that someone in the form of "Chef" (Antonio Banderas), who becomes both his employer and landlord. Stuck in Cape Cod with no money, Chef puts Tony to work washing dishes in his kitchen and allows him to sleep in a hammock on his porch. Tony befriends fellow kitchen worker Sal (Leo Woodall), a drug-addled, violent loose cannon who makes Tony seem like a shrinking violet by comparison. He pursues Nancy (Emilia Jones), a former high school classmate he has long admired from afar.
The core relationship is that between Tony and Chef. The latter is taciturn in nature, a calming influence amid the chaos of his kitchen. Johnson builds up this relationship through subtle visual cues, Chef eyeing Tony over the rim of his glasses like an uncle who sees their nephew heading in the wrong direction. There is something of Mr Miyagi in how the gruelling tasks Chef sets Tony are done with the paternal purpose of building character. It is a reminder of the importance of young people being around elders who can see their mistakes coming because they've already made them. I thought about how at 17, many of my friends and co-workers were my parents' age and older, and how this is no longer the case for young people today, who view anyone three years older than themselves as a "boomer." There is no better way to mature than spending time with older generations.
Banderas is what I call a "Moneyball actor." Those are performers who are available on the cheap and don't seem able to turn down any role, but will never let you down (other Moneyball actors are Adrien Brody, Naomi Watts and Eva Green. Gary Oldman was perhaps the ultimate Moneyball actor before he got tied down with Slow Horses). Banderas's performance here is perhaps his finest to date in the English language. His Chef is the mentor we all wish we had, and when his heart is inevitably broken by his sociopathic protégé we feel a dagger in our own chests.
As a director, Johnson adopts a calmer approach than we might expect from the renegade creator of Nirvanna the Band the Show (and now movie). But a chaotic story sometimes necessitates a calm approach, and Johnson's laidback direction suggests he is on the side of Chef rather than the adrenalised young bucks in his kitchen. Johnson adds a clever recurring motif of Chef waking Tony each morning by pouring a bucket of water over his head. At a certain point Chef arrives to find that Tony has awoken before him, and Banderas's wry smile speaks volumes about the development of the two men's relationship. There are certain tics in Sessa's performance that make you wonder if he's channelling Johnson as much as Bourdain, and had this been made earlier Johnson may well have cast himself in the title role.
The one aspect of Tony that doesn't quite land is Bourdain's tempestuous pursuit and courtship of Nancy. There is nothing about Tony that makes us want to root for his success in this area (if your teenage daughter brought him home you'd chase him away with a loaded shotgun), and it's difficult to buy into Nancy's eventual capitulation to his nonexistent charms.
But this is really a story of intergenerational platonic friendship rather than romance. The real love story here is between Tony and food, and Chef is the cupid whose arrow sets the young man on his path to culinary greatness.
Tony is in UK/ROI cinemas from August 14th.
