Movie Review: ‘Tony’

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Review by James Lindorf

Anthony Bourdain dreamed of being a writer from a fairly young age. He would eventually find success in that field but not in the way he imagined. It was his memoir “Kitchen Confidential,” first published in 2000, that got him on The New York Times Best Seller list on its way to becoming one of the most acclaimed books on the culinary world. The book launched his media career, leading to nearly two decades on television before his untimely death. A24’s latest project, “Tony,” directed by Matt Johnson from a 2024 Black List script by Todd Bartels and Lou Howe’s adapts the first two chapters of his story. It was the summer of 1973 when a 19-year-old Bourdain stumbled into a Provincetown kitchen and began to discover who he might become. A24 opened the film in limited release on August 7th before expanding it nationwide on August 21st.

Tony (Dominic Sessa) is a Vassar student with literary ambitions and an inflated sense of himself. When he fails to earn a writing fellowship he thought he could bullshit his way into, he impulsively follows his high school love interest Nancy (Emilia Jones) to Provincetown, Massachusetts, in hopes of escaping his embarrassment. Flat broke after getting robbed by Sal (Leo Woodall), a brash and charismatic cook from the local seafood restaurant, the Flagship, Tony talks his way into a job as a dishwasher at the same restaurant by lying about his experience. What follows is a summer of raucous kitchen culture, escalating drug use, hard-won lessons, and the gradual emergence of the man Anthony Bourdain would spend the rest of his life becoming.

Sessa carries the film with remarkable confidence. Tony is not immediately likable. Honestly, he isn’t very likable at the end either, but you grow to appreciate him over time. He is arrogant and dishonest, and he makes the same mistakes repeatedly as he cycles through different versions of himself, trying to find one that fits. The first night he goes out with Sal is the film’s most quietly revealing scene, watching Tony audition personalities in real time, cycling through his default arrogance and then reaching for Sal’s charismatic recklessness, neither quite working because he has not yet figured out what he actually has to offer. That kind of subtle character observation is what separates a good coming-of-age film from a great one.

Antonio Banderas plays Chef, the Flagship’s owner and the film’s moral center, and he is magnificent. He has less screen time than Woodall, but he steals every scene even if he is silent because everyone else is always playing off of him. Late in the film, he tells Tony, “You could be anything you want, and you’re nothing,” and Banderas makes you feel Chef’s anger, frustration, and disappointment. It is the best performance in a film full of great ones. The kitchen ensemble, particularly Halkias as Dimitri and Woodall as the doomed Sal, creates the kind of camaraderie that makes the Flagship feel like a real place with its own ecosystem rather than a backdrop.

The film’s most significant weakness is Nancy. Emilia Jones is a talented actress who has proven her range elsewhere, and she does what she can here. Unfortunately, Nancy is written as an object to be pursued rather than a person with her own life. Tony follows her to Provincetown driven by something that reads more like horniness than genuine connection, and the film never gives us enough of Nancy to understand why she is worth the pursuit or why she would be into Tony. A more fully realized Nancy would have strengthened everything around her, including the emotional stakes of the moments when Tony’s lies finally catch up with him.

The pacing softens in the middle section once the film establishes its rhythms. The primary markers of narrative progression are the station Tony is working on and the escalation of the drugs being used. When the heroin comes out, it is genuinely shocking but not enough to overcome the sense of a film spinning its wheels slightly before the climax. It is a minor complaint against a film that is otherwise confidently directed and consistently alive.

For fans of Bourdain, whether through his food, his writing, or his television work, “Tony” is a must-see. It captures something true about what made him compelling: the restlessness, the self-mythology, the genuine hunger beneath the performance of confidence. The closest comparison I could come up with is 1999’s “October Sky,” which starred Jake Gyllenhaal as John Hickam, who was on his way to help change the world thanks to a small-town science fair. Compared to the mostly lighthearted rocket movie “Tony” is much heavier with its self-loathing, theft, drug use, and violence and it earns a 4.5 out of 5 for its dark exploration of life in a kitchen and its fantastic performances.

Genre: Biography, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Limited Theatrical): August 7th, 2026
Release Date (Wide Theatrical): August 21st, 2026
Director: Matt Johnson
Screenwriter: Todd Bartels, Lou Howe
Distributor: A24
Production Co: A24