Director: Matt Johnson
Writer: Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, Matt Johnson
Stars: Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones
Synopsis: A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life.
Watching Tony, the new biopic about the early life of the great chef, writer, and television personality Anthony Bourdain, one thing is clear: this is not Bradley Cooper’s Kitchen Confidential. That failed Fox sitcom was so loosely based on Bourdain’s life that it resembled a thin gravy that desperately needed more time to thicken. Tony, on the other hand, embraces imperfections that many considered attractive forty years ago. This adaptation of the novel leans into Bourdain’s ego, ambition, and swagger, qualities that some will find irresistible and others insufferable, but almost no one will find uninteresting. That credit goes to the star Dominic Sessa, who is so magnetic in the role that you cannot take your eyes off of him.
Now, that is not exactly novel, as many nineteen-year-old men lean into self-confidence to mask their insecurities and push them deep inside. However, films nowadays often shy away from depicting that kind of ego and cockiness, treating those qualities as flaws. Yet those same qualities have helped build great monuments, shape groundbreaking theories, and inspire grand inventions.
A24’s Tony proves that great empires often begin with the first timers, especially in the kitchen.
The story follows Bourdain (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t’s Sessa) as he spends his final summer as a teenager working in a Cape Cod kitchen. After reluctantly taking a low-end kitchen job at The Flagship, Tony is taken under the wing of its proprietor, Ciro (Antonio Banderas, fantastic here), known as “Chef,” who channels his drive into focused ambition.
Sessa could have easily succumbed to a low-rent imitation of the figure, the same way Al Pacino sometimes seems to shape a character simply by wearing a funny hat. Instead, with his unkempt hair, surly attitude, and insatiable curiosity, Sessa draws the viewer in. His eyes glint and his mouth curls into a crooked smirk whenever he is about to deliver a seasoning of caustic wry humor.
Like FX’s American masterpiece The Bear, Tony immerses the viewer almost immediately in a world few know or have experienced. Writer-director Matt Johnson (Blackberry) finally does the source material justice, evoking a hard-boiled, egomaniacal comedy filled with bustling claustrophobia and overwhelming anxiety, where perfection is the baseline, not the goal.
Johnson, who co-wrote the script with Matt Miller, Todd Bartels, and Lou Howe, shapes a biography that captures Bourdain’s climb toward grace rather than the figure’s fall. However, there are still shades of Bourdain’s self-destructive impulses, fear of rejection, and loneliness, all foreshadowing issues he would face later in life that the film avoids, considering the narrow timeline.
However, the performance that rivals Sessa’s, and some may argue surpasses it, comes from Tuner’s Leo Woodall as Bourdain’s coworker, Sal. I would argue that Sal serves as Anthony’s darker alter ego. A composite character who most closely resembles “Bobby” from the source material, Sal feels like an artistic reflection of Bourdain’s future self, embodying the wildest, untapped impulses.
Yet Tony truly has something for everyone. You could argue that its basic structure is not exactly novel, since this is a coming-of-age story without a conventional coming-of-age transformation. Still, familiarity alone is not a flaw. With a cliché or trope becomes a problem only when it is poorly executed. Here, the structure accomplishes its purpose.
There is also the requisite love interest, played by CODA’s Emilia Jones. Still, it would be far less believable if a teenager did not possess a voracious appetite for love. Just as he does for food and knowledge, Bourdain approaches life with an insatiable appetite that he displayed throughout his public life.
Tony equates ambition and intellectual curiosity with the desire to taste, experience, and understand everything life has to offer. Sessa’s raw and authentic turn and the lens Johnson uses to view Anthony Bourdain’s life focus on the baby steps that formed the foundation, which is wildly entertaining and a thoughtful Chef’s kiss to the genre.
You can watch Tony exclusively in theaters on August 7th!
