I sure have seen a lot of documentaries lately, and the theme seems to be that they all cover things I don’t know much about. Sparks? Vaguely familiar. Rita Moreno? I knew her from West Side Story and that was about it. The Harlem Cultural Festival? Never even heard of it. However, I like documentaries that can teach me something, so that all works out well for me. And now there’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, and since I generally skip cooking show and travel shows, I wasn’t really familiar with him either. So, really, I had the chance to learn something about someone I knew little about once again.
Plus, this one came from documentarian Morgan Neville, and I absolutely adored Won’t You Be My Neighbor. If he could do for Anthony Bourdain what he did for Mr. Rogers, I will be very pleased.
Of course, Bourdain died of a suicide, but he did film a lot of footage for his various travel shows, so there’s a lot on display here to reconstruct his life, starting roughly from the time he wrote the bestselling memoir Kitchen Confidential right up until the end. Bourdain by his own admission more or less fell into cooking by sheer dumb luck, but he always had a knack for words and writing. He actually got a book deal based on an email he sent to an author friend whose wife became Bourdain’s first publisher. The book’s success led to a second book about traveling and eating abroad, and that got him into his first TV show. A nominally shy guy according to his producer friends and partners, Bourdain was apparently a man who knew how to adapt quickly and dive into any role he needed to.
That may actually have been one of his problems. Much of the film refers to Bourdain as someone with an addictive personality, and he tended to go from one passion to another. As much as the first act of the movie is there to explain why people loved Bourdain as much as they did, talking to many of his friends, co-workers, and one of his wives. He comes across as a romantic with an idea about many of the places he wanted to go see, many coming from the books and movies he grew up with. The effect largely works as the people on screen talking about Bourdain all clearly cared for him as a person.
But Bourdain famously committed suicide rather suddenly, and the movie doesn’t shy away from pointing out his darker side. Sure, he could throw himself into any project with a lot of gusto, was a natural storyteller, and from all indications a good friend, but he was also a troubled man who didn’t seem to know how to reach out for help. By the time the movie comes to a close, I found myself tearing up a little bit for a man I”d never met just by watching his friends and second wife (who I don’t think he ever technically divorced) showing genuine sorrow over his loss.
Now, the movie has gotten some heat for using a computer to mimic Bourdain’s voice in some of the voiceover. To be honest, I didn’t much notice that one way or the other, but I do think the movie has something of a flaw. Italian actress and director Asia Argento, Bourdain’s last girlfriend, is not among the many people talking about Bourdain’s life and success, and it sure does look like none of the people who actually did come out to speak cared much for her, particularly given how much Bourdain changed after he started seeing her. The movie stops short of blaming her for the suicide, even explicitly having one friend weigh in and say Bourdain himself is to blame for his suicide, but it sure would have made for a much better movie had Argento been able to give her side to the story a bit, especially given how much the other interviewees clearly didn’t care for her very much. That would have given the movie a bit more balance, something it had done a fairly good job of up until that point by showcasing the many sides of Bourdain as seen by his friends. I just think getting her take on him would have added to the mystery that was a man who one day decided he had to end it all, and those are always tragic stories that can never quite be explained anyway.
Grade: B+
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