Movie Review: Anthony Bourdain biopic 'Tony' is just an early nibble at a culinary giant
- The film 'Tony' is a coming-of-age story about Anthony Bourdain set in the summer of 1975.
- Director Matt Johnson has taken liberties with Bourdain's formative years, focusing on his time in a restaurant kitchen.
- Dominic Sessa plays the teenage Bourdain, portraying him as a misfit who struggles to find joy.
- The film fails to fully capture the essence of Bourdain, leaving viewers wanting more.
- Despite its shortcomings, the film touches on Bourdain's early love for cooking and his struggles with addiction.
'Tony,' the Anthony Bourdain biopic, is a coming-of-age tale for a modern culinary giant. Set over just a summer, it’s also clearly an appetizer. Director and co-writer Matt Johnson has frustratingly taken liberties with a formative period in Bourdain’s life, but still only manages to tell the story of how a callow lad became somewhat of a less callow lad after toiling in a restaurant kitchen on Cape Cod in 1975.
In 'Tony,' the world-weary, forever romantic, noodle-slurping Bourdain that we would fall in love with decades later via travel shows like 'Parts Unknown' stays firmly out of grasp. What’s perhaps most frustrating is that this could have been a fine movie without Bourdain at its center at all. Who doesn’t like a good coming of age? Why did it have to be Bourdain if Bourdain never gets to be Bourdain?
Dominic Sessa plays the teenage chef-traveler as an angular misfit, his tall frame hunched, peering at people through a mop of unruly curls. We rarely see moments of joy flash on his face, even for lust or food. He never unlocks. Even a beautifully documented moment in Bourdain’s life doesn’t trigger awe. Bourdain spent two chapters talking about this time in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in his star-making 2000 memoir, 'Kitchen Confidential.'
电影评论：安东尼·布尔丹传记片《托尼》只是对烹饪巨人的初步尝试
《托尼》是安东尼·布尔丹的传记片，讲述了一位现代烹饪巨人的成长故事。设定在一个夏天，这部电影显然只是一个开胃菜。导演兼共同编剧马特·约翰逊对布尔丹的成长岁月进行了令人沮丧的改编，但仍然只能讲述一个年轻人在1975年在凯普科德的餐厅厨房工作后变得不那么幼稚的故事。
在《托尼》中，我们无法触及到那个世故、永远浪漫、爱吃面条的布尔丹，他在几十年后通过旅行节目《未知的部分》让我们爱上。或许最令人沮丧的是，这本可以是一部很好的电影，如果没有布尔丹作为中心角色。谁不喜欢一个好的成长故事？如果布尔丹无法成为布尔丹，为什么非得是布尔丹呢？
多米尼克·塞萨饰演青少年厨师旅行者，身材瘦长，常常弯着身子，通过一头凌乱的卷发窥视他人。我们很少看到他面上闪现快乐的瞬间，即使是对欲望或食物。他从未解锁。即使是布尔丹生活中的一个美好时刻也未能引发敬畏。布尔丹在他2000年成名的回忆录《厨房机密》中花了两章谈论他在马萨诸塞州普罗温斯敦的这段时光。