Tony (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Tony

TONY (2026)

Starring Dominic Sessa, Emilia Jones, Antonio Banderas, Leo Woodall, Stavros Halkias, Michael Jibrin, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Caroline Portu, Monica Raymund, Ava Davey-Bissett, Liam Fitch, Joe Burns, Allyn Burrows, Reece Grover, Henry Lynch, Derek K. Moore, Zele Avradopoulos, Eric Ripert, Joel Alves, Mike Owen, Francesca Baker, Luke Crory and Emanuel Gomes.

Screenplay by  Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller & Todd Bartels & Lou Howe.

Directed by Matt Johnson.

Distributed by A24. 106 minutes. Rated R.

“I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” Anthony Bourdain

This quote opens Matt Johnson’s new film on the life of the famed celebrity chef. Yet, while Tony is about Bourdain, we don’t see most of the highs and lows of his history – the kitchens, the fame, the best-selling books, the reality TV stardom, the travel, the hobnobbing with the rich and famous, the tragic ending.

Perhaps that is for the best. Bourdain’s death is not mentioned once in Tony, not even in the closing credits chyrons describing his life. Let’s face it, anyone interested enough in Anthony Bourdain to want to see Tony already knows the circumstances of his death. Dwelling on the fact would just add a pall of melancholy to an otherwise charming coming-of-age story.

Tony is not a biography in the traditional sense. It takes a look at a snapshot in time, a very small, specific moment in Bourdain’s life – the summer when a college-aged Tony got his first job in a restaurant.

As noted in the opening quote, back then Tony was a lot to handle. He was a practiced, polished liar and braggart. He was full of himself. He was dismissive and even hostile towards other people. He was essentially stalking a girl he had a crush on. And he never, ever took responsibility for his own bad behavior.

It can be hard to make an audience root for a character like that, but Dominic Sessa shows that the promise he showed in The Holdovers (and to a lesser extent in supporting roles in Tow and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t) was no mirage. He brings Tony vividly to life, and despite all his faults, Sessa gets the audience to root for his redemption.

When we meet Tony, he fancies himself a great writer of the future – although he doesn’t actually seem to want to put in the work to actually sit down at the typewriter. He goes in trying to win a fellowship grant for his education but only gives a half-assed and rather pretentious concept of an idea for a potential novel. Still, it is quite clear that he is more interested in telling people that he is a fellowship-winning writer than actually being one.

The person he spends most of his energy telling about the fellowship and his writing is Nancy (Emilia Jones), a slightly older girl he knew in high school and had a huge crush on, although she barely knew he existed. "Didn't you punch a hole in the principal's door?" she asks him when they run into each other at a bar.

Even though Nancy obviously doesn’t care much about his book project – and her friends openly mock him – he keeps insisting on telling the story even after being rejected for the fellowship. And it’s not just her – he tells everyone, including his parents, that he had been awarded the scholarship long after he was turned down.

When he finds out that Nancy is spending the summer up in Provincetown on Cape Cod, he decides on a whim to go up there and find a way to win her over. So without even a word to his parents, he leaves New Jersey and heads north for the summer.

Once up in Provincetown, he takes a job from the owner of a local restaurant – played by Antonio Banderas, whose character is known simply as Chef. In exchange for working, he can sleep on the hammock outside the restaurant. Of course, Tony claims he has worked at a restaurant before (he hasn’t) and that his father is the best chef in New Jersey (he isn’t).

The restaurant is The Dreadnaught, a hectic tourist restaurant that specializes in seafood. However, despite having settled into the fast-food‑fine‑dining hybrid of his own place, Chef has actually had a pretty storied career – a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America who has worked at fine establishments all over the world. But he has long since given up the quest for Michelin stars. Instead he has settled into the comfort zone of feeding tourists the fried foods they crave.

The rest of the crew at The Dreadnaught is a colorful bunch. The leader is Sam (Leo Woodall), a good-looking party boy with an amazing way with women, but also substance abuse and anger issues. Stavros (played by comedian and podcaster Stavros Halkias) is a big, loud, profane line cook. The quiet-but-competent Tyrone (Michael Jibrin) rounds out the core trio of seasoned, chaotic cooks working the line alongside Tony.

Even though he’s mostly relegated to washing dishes, Tony is a bit of a disaster from the very beginning in the kitchen. He can’t shuck an oyster properly, he can’t use the device to slice potatoes into fries, he complains about refilling the ketchup bottles, and he obviously wants to get out of there and track down Nancy as soon as possible.

He quickly finds out that Nancy is working at a local pizza parlor. Tony does not admit to their shared restaurant work, instead insisting he is up there working on his novel. Even when he finds out at a local party that Nancy has a boyfriend, he keeps hanging around, hoping to work his way into her heart, or at least her attention.

Knowing she is an aspiring photographer, he asks her to take some author’s photos for his so-far non-existent book. Surprisingly, the gambit works, they start hanging together as she takes some casual candid shots of him around the island.

In different ways, his evolving relationships with Sam, Nancy and Chef become the backbone of the film. Some are more harmful than others (we’re looking at you Sam). Others are a bit harder to buy (to a certain extent the relationship with Nancy sometimes feels like wish fulfillment). However, it is the slowly-maturing relationship with Chef which gives Tony most of its emotional heft.

Banderas delivers his strongest (non-animated) role in at least a decade, and he sells it with subtle charm, which is nice because he sometimes tends to overact in roles. Their scenes together have a quiet, lived-in warmth; Chef is the rare person who challenges Tony without dismissing him.

The rest of the cast also shines, with Jones making Nancy both down-to-earth and understandably girl-of-your-dreams unattainable. Woodall gives Sam a vibe of dangerous potency. Dagmara Domińczyk and Rich Sommer are also effective as Bourdain’s ineffectual parents – mom is overly cold and dad is overly doting.

All is well framed by the confident, funny, deceptively breezy and bittersweet direction of Matt Johnson (Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, BlackBerry). Johnson captures the contradictions in Bourdain’s life and the irony that this insecure young man grew to become a beloved and pithy TV star, although one who it turns out was still haunted by many of the same issues and neuroses which confounded his younger self.

There is also an evocative score by Matt Johnson’s longtime collaborator (and Nirvanna the Band the Show costar) Jay McCarrol.

I have to admit, as someone who was only peripherally a fan of Anthony Bourdain, I’m rather shocked how good the film on his early life turns out to be. It’s smart, comical, heartfelt and inspirational, finding unexpected depth in a summer that could have felt trivial. Also the acting by Sessa and the direction by Johnson promise long, fascinating careers.

By the time Tony reaches its final moments, what stays with you isn’t the future fame or the tragedy we already know – it’s the fragile, funny, infuriating kid trying to figure out who he is. Matt Johnson’s film finds grace in the small things: a mentor’s patience, a crush’s kindness, a kitchen’s chaos. It’s a lovely, surprising portrait of beginnings, and one that honors Bourdain without ever mythologizing him.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 5, 2026.