Tony

It's kind of like a superhero origin story for Anthony Bourdain, starring that kid from The Holdovers, Dominic Sessa. The opening is a quote from Bourdain himself, and I'm paraphrasing, something like, "When I was young, I was a cocky, pretentious little shit who needed an ass-kicking." It kind of sums up the plot of the film. Bourdain, as the film portrays him, comes from a middle-class American family and is going to college, where he's in the running for a writing scholarship. The Bourdain we see is that cocky kid who believes he is going to be a writer and the world is his oyster - he quickly finds out it's not and those suckers are really hard to open. He chases after a girl (Emilia Jones) to Providence on the East Coast, where he finds himself broke and hungover, taken in by the League of Shadows . . . sorry, that's Batman. . . taken in by the chef (Antonio Banderas) of a local seafood restaurant out of pity. Here Bourdain gets some tough life lessons; this is where he matures. As a teenager, I worked in kitchens, also transitioning from dishwasher to prep cook to line cook before leaving it all behind. I did think about going into the culinary arts. What I know about Tony is that it rings true. Drinking, drugs, and alcohol all seem to play a large part of that world, and everyone smokes (or they used to). All of this, all the characters you find in kitchens are put here on the screen and it's authentic. This is Canadian writer/director Matt Johnson's second feature to come out this year (the first being Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie). What a great year Matt is having! So go make a reservation at your local theatre - playing at The Mayfair and The ByTowne here in Ottawa or rent it when it's available from Movies 'N Stuff.