Tony | Official Trailer HD | A24<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Johnson is certainly no stranger to crafting engrossing biopics, as his 2023 cautionary tale, BlackBerry, essentially put the director on the map towards ambitious projects, and while Tony follows the same path to prominence as its predecessor, their outlining executions couldn’t be any different, supplanting one of the very best biopics that I have seen in recent years, if not ever. Part of this refreshing appeal is reliant upon the audience having any semblance of knowledge about the darkly troubling times of its titular figure, which here is traded out fortuitously for an openly endearing atmosphere and sparky presentation full of consistent humor that not only entices audiences to the often uncomfortable interactions between colorfully animated and conflicting personalities, but also a remarkable undercurrent of moral and ethical honesty that doesn’t feel artificial towards crafting a phonily conventional narrative privy to this overcrowded subgenre. If one thing is for certain, it’s that Johnson admires Bourdain for his resiliency and his eagerness, but he definitely doesn’t convey him as being something that he rightfully isn’t, with the film having no qualms about showcasing the selfishness and irresponsibility of reckless actions that draw humanity from conjured experiences, and while this can make it difficult for the audience to occasionally empathize with this character in the monumental moments it requires from them, the isolation factor and loneliness of his long-distance charade never loses sight of the live fast lifestyle of adolescence, where like most coming-of-age stories pertaining to transformation, there’s a girl at the center that drives him to strive for better. To cement this idea of Anthony’s change, the script keeps from calling him Anthony Bourdain until the film’s closing moments, almost like a materializing of who he was destined to eventually become, and while his occasionally questionable actions can keep from gauging the bigger picture of his ethical growth, the motives and capabilities garnered from a job that saved his life transformed him into something far more assertive than he ever could’ve expected, in turn leaving us with an imperfect-but-inspirational tale of growth and character that ultimately refuses to cinematize an origins story already ripe with so much authenticity about its characters and this intimately particular place in time. On that front, the script from Johnson, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe offers some refreshing deviations in the narrative outlining that zero-in on one specific summer in Anthony’s life, allowing the 101-minutes of its screentime to flesh out a deeper significance to what this time frame meant to Anthony’s eventual growth, but beyond that an effortless immersion into the distinguished time period that exemplifies that care-free feeling of adventurism before inevitable adult responsibilities come to light. This is something that I feel a majority of biopics could take note of, as by avoiding the tedious repetition of rise, fall and redemption, the script is able to flesh more meaning out of dynamics and motivations than an overcrowded engagement could typically prioritize, and considering the film has some surprisingly stirring emotional beats that spring from developments that shape Anthony’s eventual outlook about the world, there’s defined meaning on why Johnson chose to invest so thoroughly in this depicted time frame, with his emanating efforts made easier by subtly enacted production values that wholeheartedly take advantage of the period without feeling overbearingly obvious or so on-the-nose that you can’t help but groan audibly in abrasiveness. The light and frothy soundtrack of classic rock and Spanish tracks breed a lucid rendering to a scene’s integrity that makes them feel like a collection of unearthed memories in the suppressed confines of ones mind, each made intricate by wardrobe and set design choices appraising immense value to the specificity of northeastern trends. The cinematography from Michael Bauman also goes a long way towards outlining the ugliness and difficulty of the culinary arts, both with claustrophobically condensed framing that evoke anxiety to the physical choreography of interacting bodies in a heavily crowded kitchen, but also the lingering long-takes and relaxed editing of slicing and dicing of menu selections, where Anthony attains quite a few nicks along the way on his expanding education. This is not to say that the food itself won’t tenderly tickle the tummies of the audience, as Bauman tantalizes a seafood addict like me subconsciously with alluring imagery that left my teeth chattering throughout several taste tests, it’s just that the film has such a respectful adoration for the magic and psychology of the craft that documents the difficulty of properly learning it, and with food playing such a vital role to Anthony’s universal acclaim, it would be a grave misstep not to include his initial interactions with it, bringing to light an unforeseen drive and poetic determination that awakens Anthony intuitively for what feels like the first time in his life. This brings me to gush about the prominent performances of a collective ensemble, even if Dominic Sessa so obviously shines as the decorated stand-out, surmising his most meaningfully expressive performance in a career already filled with memorable turns. Considering Sessa is an actor who constantly wears his emotions on his sleeve, specifically while conveying the devastatingly defeated side of Bourdain’s plummeting pride, it comes as no surprise that his elevating turn equally renders the internalized anguish and external humility of the character, with him evoking such a connective language in his communication to the camera that illustrates lived-in depth to such calculated responses, with no need for heavy-handed expositional dialogue to define the familial relationships that are the bane of his existence. Sessa is undeniably a force to be reckoned with, but he’s only as good as the co-stars surrounding his Herculean efforts, with the terrific trio of Leo Woodall, Stavros Halkias, and especially Antonio Banderas, injecting so much personality and intensity to their candidly collective portrayals. Woodall and Halkias are basically responsible for much of the heavy-lifting of the movie’s inflicted comedy, with Halkias unloading so much enthralling energy to his combative responses, while Woodall’s compelling charisma conjures complexity to a character with no shortage of self-inflicted demons, feeling like the ulterior manifestation of Bourdain if drive and ambition failed to keep him out of living in a toxic familial household. While Woodall and Halkias give out-of-this-world performances between them, Banderas truly feels on the short list for supporting Oscars gold, with his ruggedly ravishing demeanor eventually giving way to a tenderly compassionate side that exudes the warmth and nurturing side missing from Bourdain’s parental units. Because of such, Banderas shines the brightest during those isolated moments alongside Sessa, where he’s able to unload some much-needed genuineness to an engagement so concerned with unapologetic honesty, and while many will inevitably overlook him for Sessa’s captivating work, for my money it’s Banderas who keeps so much of the movie’s tone and its temperance in tow, with his emotional adaptability nothing short of brilliant when he allows the audience limitless opportunity of veering into the windows to his soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I find one major detracting component from Johnson’s storytelling, it’s that his montage-heavy direction occasionally doesn’t allow for enough time to live in the depths of some emotionally vulnerable moments, with the urgency of the pacing constantly pushing us forward, in order to not overwhelm the integrity of the aforementioned accessible tone. It’s not something that I blame on the runtime, as I feel 101 minutes is more than enough time to capably and coherently tell this story without sagging, but rather Johnson’s need to articulate insight into the experiences of the character as quickly and inconsequentially as possible, and while I never felt lost or overwhelmed by spontaneous shifts forward that jolted us abruptly from one meaningful moment to the next, with so little downtime for quietly nuanced moments in between, it does leave me wishing that Johnson reveled a bit longer and more consistently in Anthony’s evolving foundation, making the magnitude of his attainable knowledge feel all the more lived-in and believable with first-hand experience to our interpretation. Beyond this, my only other remote problem with the film pertained to some sloppy post-production after-shoots that visually bared such a lack of continuity towards its editing, such as one scene near the end of the film, where a clam bake on the beach depicts Sessa with natural hair one second, and one of the year’s worst wigs in another. This isn’t the only moment during the film resonating this kind of corrective sloppiness, as my first watch of the film spotted two other such instances, and while this ultimately won’t matter to audiences who only take value with the storytelling, I can honestly say that the faithfulness of my investment withered a bit from the distraction coming across so jarringly obvious between cuts, leaving me wishing for more deviated angles between characters if this was the best that the production could come up with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
Tony is a self-contained and breezily enacted coming-of-age biopic that values honesty every bit as much as it does the life-altering influence of human interaction, in turn slicing and dicing the conventional subgenre formula for an indulging slice of life that goes down smooth. Led by a career-defining performance by Dominic Sessa, as well as Matt Johnson’s funny and touchingly tender direction, the film fails to feel like a predisposed puff piece for consumeristic objectivity, instead opting for hopeful inspiration from an origin story that sneaks up on you in the best kind of ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 8.6 or A-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Matt Johnson Starring – Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones The Plot – A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain (Sessa) travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life. Rated R for pervasive language, drug use, and sexual content […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,21,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9814,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9812\/revisions\/9814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}