I Liked Tony a Normal Amount.

Director Matt Johnson (Left) and Dominic Sessa as Tony in Tony (cr: A24 via AP News)

I had no faith in the Tony biopic despite being charmed by Matt Johnson's auteur-ish inclinations. But that lack of faith did not stop me from wandering into the Roosevelt AMC for a matinee the weekend before classes.

Tony is everything your standard biopic is except for the fact that it isn't concerned with its subject. It has the references to coming life events, the pre-fame youthful protagonist, it even has the lazy one-dimensional love interest (played by Emilia Jones) who isn't quite real (shout out Bruce Springsteen biopic for that trope too.) The one thing Tony gets right is that it isn't quite concerned with the greater legacy of Anthony Bourdain. You don't get as much of those wiki-pageisms, the supporting cast gets to breathe more than usual, and there is a real secondary message that is seemingly divorced from the Bourdain of it all.

Tony is a story of masculinity and cultures that cultivate it. We start with young Tony who is, like any cocksure English major, proclaiming that he will write the next Great American Novel. Or at least that's what he's telling the Fellowship board to try and worm his way into a free summer in New York City. This Tony is an impish boy of lies and tricks, not an unusual trait for a Matt Johnson main character (see: The Dirties, Nirvanna the Band) as well as the overcompensating insecurity. Tony leaves home to go to Provincetown because he is unable to impress his mother, who isn't exceptionally cruel or unloving, just dismissive. He tells himself he's chasing a girl, Nancy, but honestly, he's not fooling me. He wants to be impressive and free and worth it, which I think is a sentiment most people can relate to.

The wrench in it all is Leo Woodall's Sal, who is the worst man you could meet as a young impressionable boy. Based on a myriad of different roguish figures from Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain's memoir and the basis for this film, Sal is a force of nature. He does what he wants; picks fights, sleeps around, the type of guy who is addicting to be around if you can stand the sour taste. He is, also one of the most interesting dimensions of the film, along with Antonio Banderas' Ciro (who is just called chef for most of the film.) Sal is violent "take everything you can get and stake your claim" masculinity, whereas Ciro is disciplined: an old catholic man who lets Tony sleep in his hammock, teaches him to cook, and drags him to church every Sunday. When Sal teaches Tony to shuck oysters to impress girls, Ciro teaches Tony to make salt from seawater. These two ideologies of masculinity fight within Tony; his nature is lies and tricks, aligning more with Sal until he gets inadvertently caught on the receiving end of a violent outburst. This fight renders Tony like a child who watched his father turn cruel against him and shatters his rose-colored view of the man. Ciro picks up the pieces and gives Tony the choice to be a kinder man.

I won't go too deep into it because you should go see it for yourself but, for my closing thought, I will say I liked the film more than I liked the part of Kitchen Confidential it's based on. Johnson spins a decent story that is less concerned with who Bourdain will be and more with who he was at the time. Unfortunately, it is kinda mid, a solid 3/5, which isn't bad but a whole point less than my previous least favorite Matt Johnson.