You’re going to find out about it anyway. So, here’s some preemptive truth-telling. There’s no way to tell what Anthony Bourdain would have thought about Tony. Would he have hated the attention? Would he have brushed it off? There’s more than enough discourse about it. But one thing’s for sure. Anthony Bourdain has left the kind of impact on the world that only a handful of others may have managed to. Every generation comes around to him one way or the other through books, his shows or bits and pieces now trending on social media platforms.
A still from ‘Tony’
| Photo Credit:
A24
So, I will let you find and get to know him in your own way, as I did. I’d recommend starting with his book, Kitchen Confidential, but I digress.It has been three weeks since the release of Tony in the US, and we finally have the India release. I thought it would be difficult to avoid the critics and articles and keep them from colouring my opinions. Still, despite engaging with all the online chatter, I came away feeling anew.Tony is a film that demands to be experienced. Whatever the Internet has decided it is — masterpiece, misfire, or something in between — feels besides the point until you have sat through it yourself and felt passion, urgency, joy, pain and sorrow all at once. Tony (English)Director: Matt JohnsonCast: Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo WoodallRuntime: 1 hour 46 minutesStoryline: A young Anthony Bourdain spends one summer in Provincetown which changes the trajectory of his life.Tony does not tell the story of Bourdain’s entire life, and I doubt any single piece of media is capable of doing so (looking at you, Roadrunner). It tells the story of a lost, rebellious college kid who finds himself in Provincetown, Cape Cod, one summer, and how the kitchen makes him a man. A coming-of-age, if you will.Anthony (Dominic Sessa), or Tony as he likes to go by, is a brilliant liar. He almost convinces the jury of a writing fellowship of his abilities to write a book on a story that he makes up on the spot. Arrogant, egotistical young Tony walks up to his high-school crush Nancy (Emilia Jones) in a bar afterwards with confidence, and claims to have the fellowship in the bag and invites her to New York. The words “I’m going to Cape Cod for the summer” change the trajectory of his life. An expert liar, now heartbroken after being rejected from the fellowship, Tony follows a girl to Provincetown. His parents celebrate his acceptance into the fellowship while he angrily punches a Bruce Lee poster, steals money from his father and gets on a bus only to find the object of his desire working in a pizza parlour and gleefully kissing another guy.
