TONY – Review
– By Cate Marquis –
Before he was Anthony Bourdain, the famous chef/author/TV star was just Tony, a rather arrogant, obnoxious yet unsure 19-year-old college student with ambitions to be a writer, who finds himself in the quirky Provincetown during the summer. Less a biopic than a coming-of-age tale, Tony Bourdain learns lessons in cooking, people and himself during this pivotal time in one of the most uniquely magical places in the country. It is the summer that changes his life.
That pivotal moment came in 1975, when a chance meeting with a girl from his high school led the 19-year-old to the unique Provincetown, a beach enclave at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. An impulsive decision leads to a summer that will change the course of his life. TONY is more an origin story, and a coming-of-age tale, than a biopic, where the young Bourdain learns lessons, about cooking, people, life and himself, during a pivotal time in this quirky, creative community, to becomes the man he would be.
Whether or not you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain, either for his bestselling books like “Kitchen Confidential” or his hit TV food-and-travel shows, TONY is simply an excellent film, the best kind of coming of age story, in which a seemingly-set life path is completely altered, but also a journey that is entertaining and filled with the crazy impulsiveness of youthful adventures.
Although it is a pivotal moment in one individual’s life, and gives is insight on who Bourdain was then, there is also something universal here, particularly for anyone who has experienced a pivotal life moment. Director Matt Johnson’s film somewhat fictionalizes Bourdain’s experiences, compressing three summers into one and combining some people into composites, yet it gets to the basic truth of young Tony’s experiences, the way another slice of life biopic, MOTORCYCLE DIARIES, captured the essence of a pivotal time when a privileged, asthmatic Argentinian medical student was changed into the person who became the revolutionary Che Guevara. Of course, Bourdain was not a revolutionary in that sense, but his writings and TV shows did much to revolutionize people’s perceptions of professional kitchens and the work and lives of chefs.
Dominic Sessa, who was so good in THE HOLDOVERS, is excellent as young Tony, playing him with the right balance of sympathetic and grating, a kid who is obnoxiously braggy and overly confident yet is clearly covering up his massive insecurities. A student at Vassar, Tony has applied for a writing grant for the summer, although he tells his friends he is only doing to have money to support a summer of idleness. Overconfident Tony is almost off-hand in his interview for the grant, seeming to assume they will give it to him, and certain he is dazzling them with his brilliance, when in fact he is grating than anything. At home with his parents, Gladys Sacksman Bourdain (Dagmara Dominczyk) and Pierre Bourdain (Rich Sommer), we see his other side, and get insight on some of the basis for his mix of braggadocio and insecurity, with his hovering, overly positive father, and coldly judgmental mother. Escaping from the pressures of family dinner, he runs into an old crush from high school, Nancy (Emilia Jones), who mentions she will be staying in Provincetown for the summer. After playing cool while bragging about his sure-thing writing grant, he secretly plans to follow her there.
Nothing quite works out as planned and Tony finds himself in Provincetown with no money and no place to stay. He sleeps, uninvited, on the porch of a beach-side bungalow, until he is discovered by the owner of the house, the chef/owner (Antonio Bandera) of a local seafood joint. The chef lets the boy sleep on his porch but puts him to work in his restaurant as a dishwasher, the lowest spot on the restaurant social ladder. Lazy and arrogant Tony finds himself forced to work harder than he ever thought he could in the kitchen, an experience he feels both as a come-down and a wake-up call for the teen who grew up in a privileged background, but it is a lesson that shifts his view of what life could offer.
After hours, Tony joins parties at the house Nancy and her friends are renting, where he tries to present himself as a writer and conceals that he is working as a restaurant dishwasher, He also finds himself, reluctantly, befriended by outgoing, confident Sal (Leo Woodall) and drawn into sometimes risky after-hours fun. Charismatic Sal is a risk-taker who lives on the edge, has a temper, and doesn’t always think things through before he rushes in. In the kitchen, Tony and his other co-workers, Tyrone (Michael Jibrin) and Stavros (Stavros Halkias), and waitress Mary (Monica Raymund), eventually create their own kind of community of teasing camaraderie and craziness, despite Tony’s initial stand-offishness.
We do get some glimpses, although not enough, of the wonderful Provincetown, a beach town at the tip of Cape Cod known for its artist colony nature and being a welcoming community for free-spirits. The film captures some of that in a community crab boil on the beach. We also get a few shots of famous locations, such as the Lobster Pot, but mostly the film focuses on the beach and the community, particularly its roots as a Portuguese fishing community turned summer beach resort. The present-day Provincetown is still a wonderful place, partly artist colony and part gay community within a summertime beach resort, and still a place that embraces the quirky and unique.
Antonio Banderas is marvelous as the owner/chef of the restaurant, a mysterious fellow who lives alone in a beachfront cottage filled with books and fine wine. We never hear his real name and he has an accent that hints at his connection to the town’s early Portuguese fisherman roots but he never says where he is from. His hole-in-the-wall restaurant serves up lobster rolls and other casual beach resort fare yet his kitchen is filled with high-level cookbooks. Hints of a high-level of skills are revealed in unexpected ways, such as making his own ketchup from scratch, although he pours into recycled commercial bottles, and making the salt in the shakers on the tables from the sea, without letting patrons know he is doing those things. He is unquestionably a chef, not a cook, and he keeps a distance from the staff.
The story follows both Tony’s romantic pursuit of Nancy and his transformation by his summer experiences in the kitchen, a job he conceals from Nancy, while trying to impress her with skills like opening oysters. The film explores the staff dynamics in the kitchen and Bourdain’s growth as a person, as well as delving into the character of his would-be girlfriend, the mysterious chef and edgy co-worker Sal who befriend Tony and introduces him to the free-spirited, often wild after-hours camaraderie and social whirl of restaurant workers.
Director Matt Johnson has a sure hand in telling this immersive, relatable story, which draws us in whether we care about this individual or not, making it seems both universal and specific. We get a sense of what working in a restaurant kitchen is really like, and even better, a sense of the magical community spirit of Provincetown, a place that welcomes those who do not fit in elsewhere.
It is worth noting that the film offers a more realistic look inside a working restaurant than shows like “The Bear,” which is more sanitized, controlled and calm than real restaurants. TONY shows the real chaos and mix of misfit and oddball characters, as well as the honest community that forms, in real restaurant kitchen, as well as the social stratification by job prestige, with the lowest being the dishwasher.
The story is based on, sometimes more inspired by, formative events in Bourdain’s young life but this is not a documentary as it departs from facts at several points. The events depicted took place over three summers, not one, and the girl of his dreams in the film was actually his high school sweetheart who became his first wife. The restaurant was one of many in Provincetown and the chef is a composite of various ones as well as his mentor, and other characters are also composites. However, all those departures from fact do not keep the film from telling the basic truth of Bourdain’s transformative experiences in and the changes are used by director Matt Johnson to elevate this film into wonderful storytelling. While it is not strictly factual, it gets at the heart of how his time in Provincetown changed Bourdain’s life direction for good, and for his good.
Dominic Sessa is superb as Tony, taking the character through all his complex changes, and making us care about him even at his snottiest, most unlikable moments. Likewise, Antonio Banderas gives a tour-de-force performance as the closed-mouth yet intriguing chef, who helps Tony find focus and the talent, buried within him. Leo Woodall, who was so good in the indie film TUNER, does a wonderful job as Tony’s fun-loving but deeply flawed kitchen buddy, opening Tony up to new experiences but also showing him where his own life could go very wrong. Emilia Jones is also strong as Nancy, who gives Tony confusing signals on romance but whose elusiveness helps keep him on track in some ways.
TONY is a very entertaining, insightful film in its own right, even without thinking about the real person behind it, but it is something extra special for those who admired Anthony Bourdain and mourned his loss. The film ends with some text about the accomplishments Bourdain went on to but refrains from anything about his death. Choosing to focus just on his life, during and after his time in Provincetown seems fitting.
TONY opens in theaters on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026.
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
