Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Tony
Tony is a new docudrama from the A24 Films. Knowing the studio behind a film may not have any bearing on the general public’s perception of said film. However, as a critic, we’ve come to expect something, let’s say, ‘different’ about an A24 film. It may be chaotic. It may be visually or emotionally intrusive. It may be a headscratcher. It will be character-driven, and not rely on special effects. But it’s almost guaranteed to be a wild ride. A24 has brought us spectacular films, such as Marty Supreme and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Heretic and Sing Sing. It’s also put out some nearly unwatchable ones like Janet Planet and I Saw The TV Glow. The Brutalist, which I half-loved, The Whale and the multiple award-winning Everything, Everywhere, All At Once are also A24 films. We may differ in our assessment of all of these. However, it’s my opinion that Tony will fall within the extremely watchable category, and that’s due to the strength of the performances.
You may remember Dominic Sessa from The Holdovers. He played the gawky, anxious, friendless kid who remains at boarding school and spends his winter break on campus with his unlikeable teacher, Paul Giamatti. In Tony, Sessa is cast in the title role, a young Anthony Bourdain. He’s gawky, he’s anxious, he’s permanently sullen, he’s a total washout with chicks.He also lies incessantly, lies about lying, steals money from his parents, gets high at work and may have a problem with alcohol. There’s really nothing to like about Tony Bourdain. He’s pretending to be a writer because he believes that will impress the ladies.He’s broke and pretends to have experience in how the back of house in a restaurant runs, in order to earn a paycheck. He picks criminal-adjacent types to hang with, over people who want to help him succeed.
So why do we still root for him? He manages to trash everything he touches. Having never watched a single episode of any of Bourdain’s tv shows, having never read his best-selling book, Kitchen Confidential, his life is a mystery to me.All I can think is that Bourdain knows he’s being an ass, covering his deep insecurity with bluster and bullshit.And if you fall for his lies, you’re complicit and a fool, and may deserve your fate. “I’m a schmuck, take me or leave me, it’s all I got.” The fact that, after everything he does, you still want Tony to stop being that schmuck means Sessa is remarkable in the role. That the film succeeds is also be due to the wonderful performances of his co-stars, Emilia Jones and Antonio Banderas.
Jones plays his love-interest, Nancy Putkoski. Tony stalks Nancy throughout the film, following her from Vassar to Provincetown, where she’s spending the summer working in a Cape Cod pizza joint and hanging out with girlfriends. And yes, she has a boyfriend who also works in the pizza joint. Even Tony’s friends tell him she’s way out of his league. Nancy even tells Tony that he’s weird-looking; later she reveals that she knew he was lying to her about many things. And yet, she gives him a second chance. The ultimate second chance – in real life, Nancy marries Bourdain. As an aside, Jones is a dead ringer for Linda Ronstadt. If she can sing, Jones has a lock on that role. From her presence to her style to her hair to her oversize hoop earrings, she’s Linda in 1975.
Banderas plays ‘Chef’, the owner of the restaurant where Tony lands a job. He starts as a dishwasher, sleeping on a hammock on Chef’s porch. The restaurant is staffed by a collection of misfits, including Leo Woodall and Stavros Halkias. Why did Chef take Tony under his wing? Other than being another ‘misfit’, it’s also a mystery. Tony is everything Chef hates. Lazy, undisciplined, obnoxious, directionless.It’s possible that Chef sees something of himself in Tony, before he eventually found his calling as the owner of a very successful restaurant. Chef has real culinary bonafides, yet the restaurant itself, as the line-cooks see it, is simple fast-food. Chef is hesitant to make any changes to the 5-menu item formula. Perhaps it’s when Tony tells him that his own father is also a well-regarded chef – yes, another lie - that Banderas makes the decision to help push Tony in many ways, from adjusting his name to expanding his experience and pushing him towards his destiny.
The fact that Anthony Bourdain ended his own life is just that – a fact. If you’ll allow me to delve into a bit of pop psychology, this film may be a window into why a man who was ultimately so financially and romantically successful, so well-regarded, who, as many see it ‘had it all’, took his own life. Perhaps down deep he believed he hurt so many people in his early years that he could never come to terms with his later grand success. That everything he received was on-loan, with an ephemeral balance sheet, and that one day fate would come knocking and want their due and he would lose it all. Perhaps he felt he didn’t deserve any of his successes, since they were all based on the cookbook of lies that he originally dished out to the world. We’ll never know, we can only guess. In any event, I’m putting Tony in the A24 ‘yes’ category. I’ll still never eat an oyster, but the film itself is a very palatable dish.
