‘Tony’ review: A delectable slice of Anthony Bourdain’s life

Anthony Bourdain’s adolescent adventures in cooking, and life, get a delightful big-screen biopic treatment in Tony.

Tony, based on the life of Anthony Bourdain, opens with an epigraph from its subject. “I was—to be frank—a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” It’s a refreshingly frank opening for a delightfully unconventional biopic. As a writer and travel documentarian with insatiable curiosity, Bourdain remains a beloved figure of culture. His fictionalized younger counterpart, however, lives up to the epigraph.

Biopics often try to summarize the life of their subject starting from childhood, but Tony cleverly focuses on a small slice of Bourdain’s life instead. Inspired by a number of anecdotes from Bourdain’s bestseller Kitchen Confidential, Tony only follows the length of one summer. We know who Bourdain became once he was an icon of American cooking, nonfiction, and television. But who was he before that?

A slice-of-life biographical drama.

Photo Credit: Seacia Pavao

Tony (Dominic Sessa) is 19, finishing his freshman year at Vassar at the start of summer, 1975, and has just failed to secure a prestigious writing fellowship at school. But he’d rather not admit this to his parents or his indifferent crush Nancy (Emilia Jones). Tony lies that he secured the fellowship, but needs something to do for the summer. Knowing Nancy’s headed to Cape Cod, Tony takes a bus to that haven of coastal Americana with his mouthiness in tow.

Tony nabs a job in a local restaurant, run by a Brazilian ma known only as “Chef” (Antonio Banderas), and bums around town with his womanizing coworker Sal (Leo Woodall). Tony is mouthy, egotistical, and will try to talk his way out of anything rather than own up to his shortcomings. As he learns the ropes in the restaurant, he starts to find passion in the kitchen and builds a new pathway to his own future.

A cinematic feast.

Photo Credit: Seacia Pavao

In less capable hands, Tony would be an insufferable protagonist. But Sessa, so compulsively watchable, banks on the winning charm that made him a standout in The Holdovers. Bourdain’s sardonic personality shines through in Sessa’s performance. He’s a hero to root for, even though his ego needs to be knocked down a peg or two. Sessa’s energy is matched by the compelling ensemble assembled around him. Banderas’ Chef is an authoritative mentor who won’t take Tony’s ego. He’ll toss an employee out for being late, and splashes seawater on a sleeping Tony’s face. Woodall and Jones, as Tony’s contemporaries, disguise their natural British accents with American ones so convincing, you might never guess they’re not native East Coasters.

There’s also a lived-in quality to the world of Tony. You’d almost think you’ve time-traveled to 1975. Deftly directed by Matt Johnson, Tony wisely keeps out of the kitchen unless absolutely necessary. It focuses on Tony as a person, not as a chef, choosing to focus on his character growth. Sure, it’s the “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout” storyline, but with cooking. However, Tony is the story of a boy realizing the world is bigger than his own ego. Even as Tony wins over Nancy, there’s a sense of dread as we know eventually, Nancy will have to learn that Tony didn’t get the fellowship and that he’s not in Cape Cod by mere coincidence. It’s a delightfully human way of building tension. The stakes come from genuine human conflict, not from manufactured melodrama.

The bottom line.

It almost does Tony a disservice to call it a biopic, because the term calls to mind tropes of the genre that Tony avoids. It does not feel like a beat-by-beat retelling of a Wikipedia article. There are no winks to the audience of names that will become important later in history. The closest it comes to this is several characters insisting “Anthony” is a name that befits our hero more than “Tony,” but rattles this off so cleanly that it barely registers as a nod to the future fame Bourdain’s name holds. This is merely the story of someone on his way to greatness, and the lessons he had to learn to get there. It’s delicious.

Tony is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer below.

Images courtesy of Seacia Pavao and A24.

Claire Di Maio

Claire was once asked in elementary school why her go-to question was always, “Watch anything good lately?” It’s still her go-to question, because she loves hearing what other people are passionate about. She often sacrifices sleep in the hopes that she will one day clear her to-watch and to-read lists (a futile effort so far).