Tony brings young Anthony Bourdain's 1975 Provincetown summer to screen in Matt Johnson's coming-of-age biopic

A single summer in Provincetown

Set in 1975, "Tony" follows a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain as he arrives in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the free-spirited Cape Cod community described by novelist Michael Cunningham as a place where "those who live unconventionally seem to outnumber those who live within the prescribed bounds." Bourdain, played by Dominic Sessa in his first lead role after his breakout in Alexander Payne's 2023 film "The Holdovers," sleeps on the floor of a shared cottage and stumbles into a job as a dishwasher at a local restaurant called the Flagship, later fictionalized as the Dreadnaught in "Kitchen Confidential." The film runs 106 minutes and draws from roughly 50 pages of Bourdain's 2000 memoir, a 2014 episode of "Parts Unknown," and the filmmakers' own inventions to stitch together its narrative.

Mentor and cast

Antonio Banderas plays Chef, a seasoned seafood cook who becomes Tony's mentor and the only adult male figure to earn his respect. Emilia Jones plays Nancy, the older school crush Tony follows to Provincetown, and Leo Woodall plays Sal, a drug-using coworker. Banderas described his character as someone who sees potential in the young Bourdain before Bourdain himself recognizes it.

“Chef recognizes something in Tony before Tony himself realizes it. He sees potential in him, but he also knows that talent without discipline is worth nothing.”

Sessa on playing a young Bourdain

Sessa told Variety he was initially skeptical about taking on the role, expecting a full biography of Bourdain's later life. Meeting with Johnson, the Canadian filmmaker behind "BlackBerry" and "Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie," changed his mind. Sessa also said the role resonated personally, drawing parallels between his own experiences and Bourdain's youthful search for respect.

“I personally find it more interesting when you can reveal to the audience something that is not really known or hasn't been focused on at all. Even for the biggest fans of Bourdain, they feel like they're seeing something new here.”

Johnson's approach to the biopic

Johnson, whose 2023 "BlackBerry" was a workplace comedy about the rise and fall of the smartphone, told IndieWire that his approach to biopics centers on finding common ground with larger-than-life figures rather than emphasizing their exceptionalism. He argued that films which tell audiences a subject is "different than you, bigger than you, smarter than you" fail to engage viewers who need movies to help them live better lives. Cinematographer Michael Bauman casts Provincetown in what the Washington Post described as a "soft, libidinous light," rolling out the story at a pace the Post likened to "a dope smoker's pace."

Those who knew Bourdain

For people close to Bourdain, the film's release, eight years after his death by suicide in 2018, has been painful. Joel Rose, a 78-year-old novelist and editor who was Bourdain's closest literary confidant for 35 years, told The Guardian the period has been difficult. Bourdain himself described his Provincetown years in "Kitchen Confidential," writing that he and his peers would go to beaches and ponds each morning, smoke pot, sniff cocaine, drop acid and sunbathe nude. The Washington Post noted that the tight focus on one summer lets the filmmakers avoid grappling with the messier and darker elements of Bourdain's life, which the Post described as "a hopeless tangle of brilliance, exaggeration, denial, humanity, brutality, humor, conjecture and tragedy."

“I have a very strong emotional relationship to Tony and yeah, it's hard. This has been a difficult period for me.”