“Tony,” directed by Matt Johnson and starring Dominic Sessa, dramatizes Anthony Bourdain’s early years through a single summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The film follows the 19-year-old Bourdain as he takes odd jobs and works in a busy seafood kitchen, eventually finding that he likes the work as his personal life and ambitions collide. Several outlets describe the story as drawn from early material associated with Bourdain’s memoir “Kitchen Confidential.”
Reviews and previews characterize the movie as a coming-of-age portrait with a retro, briny tone. Variety and IndieWire highlight the “old-school” summer atmosphere and the drifting, chance-driven experiences of a young college kid, while The Hollywood Reporter and India Today focus on Sessa’s performance and his balance between cocky and lost. NME and The Guardian note that the film includes macho kitchen swagger, drugs and punch-ups, but also carries tenderness and sentimentality.
While all sources agree on the Provincetown setting and the formative kitchen experiences, they differ in emphasis: some stress the pre-fame glamour and discovery of cooking, others focus on its tone—ranging from mostly delicious and summery to occasionally overdone—alongside how much the audience’s knowledge of Bourdain affects viewing.
