'Tony' Review
- Trevor Leavell
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Release Date: 08/21/26 [Cinemas]
Genre: Biography. Comedy. Drama.
MPAA: Rated R.
Distributor: A24.
The Verdict: A Must-See
It’s the summer of nineteen seventy-five, and a nineteen-year-old Anthony Bourdain (going by the name Tony) has just been rejected from the writing fellowship at his college of choice. Defeated and not wanting to face the reality of his uncertain future, Tony runs away for the summer to Cape Cod in hopes of connecting with his high school crush, but as things take a left turn, he finds himself working at a kitchen run by a restaurateur named Ciro. On the surface, Tony is about a young Bourdain shaping himself into the sardonic writer we all knew, but past that, it’s a brilliant coming-of-age story about learning how to be honest with yourself.
​
Tony is adapted from Bourdain’s own memoir Kitchen Confidential, and collects Bourdain’s anecdotes about kitchen life, summer in Cape Cod, and chasing the girl of your dreams, and streamlines it all into one summer in Bourdain's late teens. However, director Matt Johnson focuses the narrative on two specific details: his relationship with Nancy, played by Emilia Jones, and the chaotic, scrappy kitchen he falls into working at, which features Leo Woodall, Stavros Halkias, and Antonio Banderas, who leads the kitchen. However, it’s all tied to the lead actor playing the titular character, Dominic Sessa, who embodies Bourdain’s well-distinguished persona so effortlessly.  All players come together to make an extravagant ensemble that charms and shines at every corner.
​
This is a very fascinating entry into director Matt Johnson’s filmography, as he’s often delivered - with the exception of Blackberry- these chaotic guerrilla-style mockumentaries that all have this fly-on-the-wall camera work that locks us inside the awkward chaos that Johnson is brewing. While Tony does have its moments of chaos and tension, Johnson delivers a remarkably warm and tender film that feels very fresh and singular while never sacrificing any of Johnson’s more notable formal quirks.
​
While this is quite an excellent coming-of-age film, people who aren’t aware of Anthony Bourdain will see it as just that. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; the film never interrogates Bourdain, his place in the writing and food world, or what it means to be a good writer, but it does interrogate a central question almost everyone faces: when are you going to start being honest with yourself and take yourself seriously? Is it going to be before your future starts? Or after you’ve got nothing else to show for yourself? I feel I prefer Johnson’s form in a more chaotic style, but that doesn’t mean Tony doesn’t hit all the right notes and will even speak to people who know very little about the man himself.