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Chile, Brazil · 2008
1h 37m
Director Pablo Larraín
Starring Alfredo Castro, Amparo Noguera, Paola Lattus, Héctor Morales
Genre Drama
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Raul is a 52 year-old man obsessed with John Travolta's disco dancing character from "Saturday Night Fever" living under the Pinochet regime in Chile. He haunts his local theater, recreating Travolta's moves as the film plays. He prepares to enter a national celebrity impersonation contest with his disco dancing, and will do anything to win - in dark and hilarious ways.
Balancing black humor against allegorical indictment of the Pinochet regime's oppression on narrow stack heels, striking, very offbeat period pic Tony Manero follows a psychotic petty criminal into the depths of his crazed obsession with John Travolta's character in "Saturday Night Fever."
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain's alarming Tony Manero--named not for its protagonist, but rather his ego-ideal, John Travolta's character in "Saturday Night Fever"--is another study of a cinema-struck, solitary daydreamer, albeit a particularly stunted member of the genus.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Larrain's (literally) dark, edgy movie is a precise artistic commentary on Augusto Pinochet's miserable regime.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
More than an indelible portrait of a sociopath with the soul of a zombie, Tony Manero is an extremely dark meditation on borrowed cultural identity.
After winning raves at last year's New York Film Festival, Pablo Larrain's Tony Manero, from Chile, is receiving a run here.