Reviews for “Tony,” Matt Johnson’s new A24 film about a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain (played by Dominic Sessa) stumbling into the chaotic world of a Provincetown restaurant kitchen, are out, and they’re excellent so far. The film currently sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, from 24 reviews, a strong early response for Johnson’s first movie produced within the American studio system.
And that must come as some relief to Johnson. Because in an unusually candid and frequently blunt new Vulture profile, the “BlackBerry” filmmaker is remarkably frank about just how difficult that experience was.
“It was a combination of how I shoot movies colliding with the American system—and I mean colliding,” Johnson emphasized.
Johnson had spent years developing an intentionally loose and improvisational filmmaking style on his early DIY films, “Nirvanna the Band the Show,” and eventually “BlackBerry.” “Tony,” however, was a much larger American production, and much of his regular Canadian crew couldn’t join him because of visa red tape and costs. Without that familiar team, Johnson struggled to recreate the spontaneous, experimental approach he had built his career around.
He recalled a perfect Atlantic sunset and wanting to let Leo Woodall and Sessa exist in the moment while the cameras rolled, only to run into the realities of time and money. “It’s not like there was a single person saying, ‘No, you can’t do that,’” Johnson explained. “I mean, sometimes there was. But the kid in me was not invited to set, to use a metaphor.”
The frustration eventually turned into what Johnson described as “complete and total dread.” Near the end of the shoot, an exhausted Johnson was talking through a scene with Stavros Halkias when the comedian pointed out just how palpable his misery had become: “Oh, man, even you can’t make it seem like this is a good situation anymore.”
Johnson eventually found his footing in post-production. Working with longtime producer Matthew Miller, he built back the studio’s trust, gained more control, and reunited with his usual creative collaborators, including editors Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch and composer Jay McCarrol.
“I got to make the movie I wanted to make, even though we took the long road there,” Johnson said.
While Johnson wasn’t battered enough to swear off Hollywood completely, he is approaching it more cautiously. He’s developing “Magic: The Gathering” for Legendary, but says the experience of making “Tony” has made him much more selective about what he takes on.
“I’ve been really careful after the experience of making ‘Tony,’ which wound up great,” he said. “I’m trying to only do projects where I feel like only I could do them, where it’s really needed for me to be a part of it.”
Johnson’s candor isn’t limited to his own work, either. During the Vulture profile, Johnson rattled off several candid movie opinions, calling “Wonder Boys” “a great, sadly forgotten film” and saying, “The first half of ‘Malcolm X’ is good and then it devolves into nonsense.” But his most unforgiving assessment was reserved for Michael Mann’s “Heat 2”: “Heat 2 is a huge, huge mistake,” Johnson said.
He offered no explanation, but still, that’s quite the jab from a relative Hollywood freshman at a veteran filmmaker. Mann’s long-gestating follow-up to his 1995 crime classic is based on the novel he co-wrote with Meg Gardiner, functioning as both a prequel and sequel to the original story, with production currently expected to begin in November.
If anything, “Tony” seems to have left Johnson less enamored with the machinery of Hollywood than with what he can still accomplish inside it. The experience may have been bruising, but with the film earning strong early notices, he’s obviously gained a much clearer idea of what he’s willing to put himself through again.
