Tony (2026) A24/Drama RT: 106 minutes Rated R (pervasive language, drug use, sexual content/nudity) Director: Matt Johnson Screenplay: Matt Johnson, Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe Music: Jay McCarrol Cinematography: Michael Bauman Release date: August 7, 2026 (US, limited)/August 21, 2026 (US, wide) Cast: Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Antonio Banderas, Leo Woodall, Stavros Halkias, Michael Jibrin, Monica Raymund, Dagmara Dominczyk, Rich Sommer, Caroline Portu, Ava Davey-Bissett.
Rating: ***
Tony is a salty and sweet coming-of-age biopic about the late Anthony Bourdain, a moody young man looking for direction in life. He finds it in the kitchen of a small seafood restaurant in Provincetown in the summer of 1975. It’s when he fell in love with the art of cooking. Call it serendipity. If not for it, he might have been another failed writer who drinks too much.
Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) plays 19YO Tony (as he likes to be called), a college student who aspires to be a writer. After being denied a valuable fellowship, Tony impulsively travels to Provincetown to find Nancy (Jones, CODA), the girl he liked in high school. Things don’t go exactly as planned and he finds himself stranded with no money to return home. He takes a job washing dishes in a local restaurant in exchange for a place to sleep. His boss, known only as Chef (Banderas, The Mask of Zorro), demands nothing short of excellence from his staff. He becomes Tony’s mentor and friend. So what if he wakes him up each morning by dumping a bucket of water on his head?
Tony tries to pursue a relationship with Nancy. He lies to her about the fellowship. He tells her that he’s writing a book. He even has her take photos of him for the back cover. She believes all of it. In addition, Tony becomes friends with the worst possible person, a co-worker named Sal (Woodall, Tuner), a drug addict and thief who brings out Tony’s self-destructive side. It nearly costs him his chance at a relationship with Nancy after Sal starts a fight with the guy she’s there with on a date.
I don’t know too much about Bourdain. I never read his books or watched his shows. All I knew about him going into Tony was that he took his own life in 2018 after a bad break-up with actress Asia Argento. I’m told that Tony isn’t completely factual. It’s largely fictionalized. He did spend a summer in Provincetown, he did wash dishes at a little seafood place and there was a Nancy. It differs in the details, mainly when it comes to Chef. He doesn’t exist. There was no mentor. There’s more, but this will suffice for the purpose of this review.
The film, directed by Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche), is less interested in showing the life of a legend than it is showing a young person in the process of becoming a man with a clear purpose in life. To that end, it succeeds thanks in no small part to Sessa who does brilliantly as Tony. He plays him exactly as Bourdain himself described in his memoir Kitchen Confidential, “a spoiled, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout in need of a good ass-kicking”. He’s not always likable yet you root for him to finally get it together.
British actress Jones does a decent job as the future Mrs. Bourdain. Unfortunately, the screenplay doesn’t give her much to work with. As a character, she’s underdeveloped to the point where one might think she doesn’t play a bigger role in the subject’s life. What attracted Tony to her in the first place? What makes her “the one”? Banderas, on the other hand, is great as Chef, an enigmatic figure so guarded, nobody even knows his real name. He takes Tony under his wing and teaches him some of the tricks of the trade. It’s likely the first real human connection Tony makes up to this point in his young life. Woodall might very well be the next big star out of Hollywood. He’s got the looks and the talent. I look forward to seeing what he does next.
Here’s what I find especially interesting about Tony besides the approach taken by Johnson. It doesn’t get too bogged down by heavier issues like Bourdain’s mental health. There are a few hints scattered throughout, but Johnson takes the simpler route with the coming-of-age angle. I didn’t even mind the predictable ending where Tony is forced to make a moral choice. Instead of showing us a doomed character, we get a young man finding his life’s passion in the least likely place. His tragic end later in life lends a note of poignancy to it all.
As of this writing, Tony is playing in limited release in New York and L.A. It opens wide on Aug. 21. It’s worth checking out. It’s a compelling and entertaining drama with some really yummy-looking food. It makes me want to go to a clambake.
