Anthony Bourdain comes of age one fateful summer and a former poet basks in belated recognition<\/p>\n
Though the new Anthony Bourdain biopic is merely an amuse-bouche, it\u2019s \u201ca memorably tasty one,\u201d said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. The movie covers only early chapters in the celebrity chef\u2019s name-making memoir, Kitchen Confidential, and because it\u2019s mere prologue to Bourdain\u2019s New York City arrival and globe-hopping TV days, it\u2019s \u201ca tad slight.\u201d Still, as it shows us a cocky but rudderless 19-year-old Bourdain falling hard for the rowdy life of the kitchen during a 1970s summer in Provincetown, Mass., \u201cthere\u2019s a spontaneity and genuineness to Tony,\u201d and its familiar coming-of-age story beats have an \u201cendearing prickliness.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Dominic Sessa is excellent in the lead role, said David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter. Making good on the promise he showed in 2023\u2019s The Holdovers, the young actor \u201cnails the contradictory aspects of a slippery character.\u201d When his broke Bourdain lucks into a job washing dishes at a seafood eatery, he\u2019s torn between the hard-partying ways of an oyster shucker played by a terrific Leo Woodall and the focus shown by Antonio Banderas as the operation\u2019s fatherly owner. The movie\u2019s only weak link is an underdeveloped romantic subplot involving CODA\u2019s Emilia Jones. For compensation, we get the \u201cquiet miracle\u201d of Banderas\u2019 performance, said Dana Stevens in Slate. The older actor\u2019s chemistry with Sessa \u201cmakes this gentle, low-stakes story simmer along like a cauldron of chowder.\u201d Even if Tony weren\u2019t a biopic about a food-world god who died too soon, \u201cit would be a movie worth watching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the new Willem Dafoe movie is a modest little drama, it\u2019s \u201calso fairly heartbreaking,\u201d said Tim Grierson in The A.V. Club. Dafoe plays Ed, a Manhattan postal worker well past 60 whose one book of poetry, written when he was young, has been rediscovered by a group of dandy 20-somethings who welcome him into their fold and encourage him to write again. While the movie \u201chas its narrative stumbles, especially near the end,\u201d Dafoe \u201chas rarely been so tender, playing a man allowing himself to dream again for the first time in forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The aging star is well paired here with Greta Lee, who plays Gloria, the literary circle\u2019s only female member, said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. Gloria is a cabaret singer and Lee \u201cgives the vampish and self-consciously artificial character a magnetic inner life.\u201d In fact, Lee and Dafoe are so good together that it\u2019s a shame the rest of the young poetry devotees are mostly treated as ludicrous poseurs. \u201cThey\u2019re ultimately too cartoonish for a film that otherwise feels so lived-in.\u201d But this isn\u2019t a mean movie, said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times. It\u2019s an \u201caffectionately told\u201d story about \u201ca certain sort of wistful foolishness,\u201d the kind that grips some groups of young people generation after generation. Dafoe\u2019s Ed just happens to be open-minded enough to enjoy being part of all that again.<\/p>\n