A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain 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.
The Garden Cinema View:
Hot on the heels of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Matt Johnson brings us the unglamourous origin story of Anthony Bourdain. Although Tony adheres to a fairly formulaic 'early years' biopic structure there are pleasures to be had in what is also a vacation film (sitting somewhere between Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale and American Pie 2). The Cape Cod setting - charming-chintzy Provincetown and beautiful Upper Cape beaches – lends a sense of summer drift. Well-chosen music cues and excellent casting strongly evoke the period setting. Dominic Sessa, picking up where we left him in The Holdovers, seems destined to play pretentious young 1970s men in need of a few hard lessons. He’s joined by Leo Wodall as a perpetually hungover ‘Masshole’ Oyster shucker, and a wonderful Antonio Banderas as the mysterious Portuguese ‘Chef’, dressed like a sea captain and taking a guarded shine to the young Bourdain.
