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Marceline Lee | Illustration Editor<\/p>\n
\u201cTony\u201d<\/p>\n
For most of A24\u2019s \u201cTony,\u201d all you see of the titular chef is a curly black mop of hair. It\u2019s the summer of 1975, and Anthony Bourdain \u2014 the world-traveling culinary critic, brilliantly acerbic writer, and the epitome of cool \u2014 is simply Tony, a 19-year-old dishwasher cutting his teeth in the kitchen. Bourdain, played by Dominic Sessa, is a slouching, awkward teenager, lying about a scholarship, grandiose about his writing, and spending his days serving up platters of fruits de mer to summering patrons and his nights pining after a girl from high school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Set in beautiful, bustling Provincetown, Massachusetts, the film serves up scene after scene of dusky sunsets or the shimmering harbor, but leaves viewers wanting in terms of substance. With the choice of all of Bourdain\u2019s life, why this particular summer? He possesses none of his characteristic charm or innate sense of cool, and the movie decides to take creative liberty (read: makes up) a cute, tidy ending in which everyone learns a lesson and becomes friends again. Ultimately, this movie falls victim to the most pretentious critique of all \u2014 the book was better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Invite\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Invite\u201d opens with an Oscar Wilde quote that reads, \u201cOne should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.\u201d But it\u2019s a different quote, often a misattribution to Wilde, that captures more of the movie\u2019s essence: \u201cEverything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
An adaptation of Cesc Gay\u2019s 2015 play, \u201cEls ve\u00efns de dalt,\u201d the entire film takes place during a dinner party between two couples in their shared apartment building. Art-school-grad-turned-harried-mom Angela (Olivia Wilde) is all wide eyes and flustered, distinctly bird-like gesticulation, while her husband, Joe (Seth Rogen), is a musician who finds his career curdled into that of a one-hit-wonder marooned in an unremarkable life. Upstairs, the bohemian P\u00edna (Pen\u00e9lope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) keep the couple awake with their rowdy sex life, a constant point of tension, though only for Angela and Joe. It\u2019s a little early to say for sure, but the four actors put themselves in the running for strongest performances of the year. When P\u00edna and Hawk come to dinner, a series of mishaps turn the night into a claustrophobic nightmare. But it\u2019s only once the dinner party detours into a swinging foursome that the two couples are truly able to confront themselves and each other. Wickedly funny and quietly cathartic, \u201cThe Invite\u201d revels in the conclusion that \u201csex is about power.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne Night Only\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n