Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain’ on HBO Max, a Probing and Insightful Documentary About a Singular Personality

Now on HBO Max, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain was a well-received documentary about a widely beloved subject upon its theatrical release in summer 2021, until it was revealed that director Morgan Neville used digitally manipulated audio to recreate Bourdain’s voice for pieces of the film’s narration. The controversy about a small detail – should we chalk it up as transparency issues, since Neville didn’t disclose his methods ahead of time? – overshadowed the overall consensus that the doc does right by Bourdain, the TV chef, travel-show host and bestselling author who won many fans with his magnetic personality. Whether Neville’s method ruffles your feathers or not (I feel like Werner Herzog would praise him for pursuing the “ecstatic truth”), Roadrunner is likely to rank among Motown exploration 20 Feet from Stardom and Mr. Rogers bio Won’t You Be My Neighbor? among the documentarian’s best work.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Bourdain’s story – at least in this doc – begins with him rolling out of bed, lighting a cigarette and writing a self-described “obnoxious memoir” of a sardonic, introverted New York City chef living paycheck to paycheck; it’s 1999. The story ends in a dense haze of grief, the result of his 2018 death by suicide; he was 61. In between is a pretty remarkable life, of a chef who became a writer who became a Food Network TV chef who became a travel-show host – and, as this doc asserts, became truly himself. His 16 years in television translates to a vast library of archival film of Bourdain, whether it’s slick footage culled from his series (No Reservations and Parts Unknown being the most watched) or relatively unvarnished behind-the-scenes clips, which Neville entangles with social-media video and personal home movies.

It’s hard to tell Bourdain’s friends from his colleagues; he seems to have made close personal connections with most everyone he worked with, which speaks volumes, illustrating why so many viewers and readers felt that connection too. Here, his friends and family help shape the narrative of his life, from his unexpected New York Times bestseller Kitchen Confidential to his awkward first steps into television to his eventual transformation into a multimedia counter-cultural personality who followed his instincts and wound up significantly transcending basic tenets of food and travel TV.

Talking heads discuss how Bourdain created a persona for TV that eventually was assimilated into his personality, so it makes sense that Neville tracks his personal life strictly during his era of fame; he gets pretty close to the man via extensive interviews with Ottavia Busia, his second wife and mother of his daughter. Other notable commentators include chefs Eric Ripert and David Chang, artists John Lurie and David Choe, and musicians Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age) and Alison Mosshart. Most everyone interviewed will be rendered vulnerable by the film’s end – choked up, visibly angry or outright weeping as they try to make sense of Bourdain’s final choices. But despite the tragedy, Neville implies, Bourdain’s legacy as an extraordinary writer and personality with a singular point-of-view stands firm.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Neville is extraordinary at piecing together probing and insightful journalism about TV personalities; his Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is one of the most moving and memorable documentaries of the last decade.

Performance Worth Watching: Bourdain’s, of course – he never seems like anything but himself no matter the context. But beyond that, Choe is the most passionate and spirited of all interviewees.

Memorable Dialogue: Profound insight into Bourdain the world traveler:

“His whole entire personality was that of a searcher. I just know he was definitely searching for something, and it was kind of agony for him.” – Mosshart

“I call it the bittersweet curse: Nothing feels better than going home, and nothing feels better than leaving home.” – Homme

“You’re not gonna outrun pain.” – Choe

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Full disclosure: I’m a Bourdain agnostic (why? So much content, so little time), but I understand why Neville draws a parallel to the gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson early in Roadrunner. The documentary is a fascinating portrait of a man with indelible charisma, and who was pretty much an open book – about the ins and outs of his romantic struggles and addictions, the profundity of fatherhood, his curiosity about the world and its people, his desire to put people of all stripes on equal footing with a right and just sense of truth, and even his inability to fully comprehend himself and his purpose near the end of his life.

Neville avoids assembling a compilation of Bourdain’s greatest hits, instead taking some of the highlights of his TV exploits (cue a clip of him swallowing a still-beating cobra heart) and contextualizing them within the greater arc of his life, digging deeper into why he did what he did. In concert with the still-raw feelings regarding Bourdain’s absence from this world, Neville renders his subject more shockingly present in a posthumous biography than perhaps any other such doc; it’s an expression of the raw, lingering pain of his passing. Yet Neville adopts the “searcher” component of Bourdain’s personality, and appropriately, doesn’t expect to uncover firm answers about his death – Bourdain was a romantic at heart who may have held himself at too high a standard and succumbed to the disappointment of never being able to reach it. That’s an interpretation of an unknowable – an unknowable that makes Bourdain’s story, in some ways, a crushingly sad exploration of death. It’s also a celebration of the man’s achievements and influence. Either way, it’s likely to provide a little necessary catharsis for the many fans who followed and loved him.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Roadrunner overcomes the criticism aimed at it, and maintains its status as a deep and insightful biodoc.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.