Lev Lazinskiy

Tony

warning: may contain some spoilers, go see the movie!

I grew up watching “No Reservations” at a time when I could never have imagined being able to see the world. Anthony Bourdain took me on a journey near and far and taught me two important lessons: Try all the food at least once, and stay away from tourists traps.

For the last few years I have been reading, or rather listening to, “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain every year around by birthday. At this point its safe to say that this is my favorite book. It’s a book that I never get tired of. It’s like an old friendship where you hear the same stories over and over again but they always bring a smile to your face. The book stays the same but I keep changing every time I read it, I always walk away with something new. I have read it several times, but I particularly love the audiobook version since Bourdain reads it himself and his narration abilities are remarkable. It feels like sitting down with and old friend over a long meal with endless rounds of drinks. He’s able to bring life to his story in a way that no one else ever could.

A couple months ago me and Aosheng were catching a movie at Grand Lake Theatre and I was so delighted when one of the trailers started with a punky long-haired guy telling his parents he was thinking about going to Vasser and then cut to a scene of a cook (played by Stavy!) cooking something while the young man was washing dishes. I knew immediately that this was going to be a movie about Anthony Bourdain since I read a version of this scene so many times in his book.

I finally got a chance to see the movie yesterday at the same Grand Lake Theatre and it was wonderful. Bourdain lived such an fascinating life that attempting to make a good movie about it feels like an impossible task. You could break his life up into four phases. Young, dumb, aimless and wild. Followed by an entire career as a chef. Followed by a new career as a writer about that career as a chef. And a final career as a guide to the entire world based on all of the above experiences.

I am glad the creators of “Tony” didn’t try to capture all of these phases and instead focused on the coming of age story of his young, dumb, aimless, and wild phase. It was not a strict representation of his life story, but I think it was perfectly executed and captured the spirit of his life well. In his book he described himself at this phase of his life as being a “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking”. “Tony” captured the spirit of these words on film.

He is an extremely unlikeable character throughout the movie and I appreciate that the film makers did not attempt to romanticize this part of his life too much. They showed the raw, unfiltered journey that many of us go through as we try to figure out who we are and who we want to be.

Three things about this film really stood out to me: I love how in the opening scene Tony tells his mom that he is working on a “buildings roman” book, which he mansplains to her as a coming of age story and she tells him that is actually pronounced “bildungsroman”, it’s a single German word. It was a clever, self-referential nod to the story that we were about to see. I don’t think we ever really saw the likable side of him in this film, you only really know that he becomes a decent person if you know about his life.

The second thing was that they gave something for his fans and made a wonderful tribute to Bourdain by having Eric Ripert play one of the C.I.A instructors interviewing the young Anthony Bourdain for a spot at the school. Ripert and Bourdain were good friends, and I’ll never forget the scene from the travel show where he takes Ripert to Chengdu and is overcome with glee watching him suffer as he explores the mala flavor for the first time.

The final thing was how they focused on his life instead of his death. In the end they don’t mention what happens next. He was an arrogant asshole, that became a slightly less arrogant (but probably still an asshole) Chef and then grew up to become a travel guide to the entire world. He inspired a love for food and a thirst for travel in me and countless other people. That is how I’ll always remember him.