By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Published: | Updated:
Dominic Sessa plays the late chef Anthony Bourdain in a drama now available to rent at home
Year: 2025
Certificate: 15
Tony is essentially an ‘origin story’ of the charismatic American chef Anthony Bourdain, who tragically hanged himself in 2018.
Matt Johnson’s film chronicles the summer of 1975, as 19-year-old Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) escapes his oppressive middle-class home in New Jersey and sets out for Cape Cod in pursuit of a girl he fancies. There, unexpectedly to all but 100 per cent of the audience, he falls in love with cooking instead.
The film is adapted from Bourdain’s riveting memoir Kitchen Confidential and, perhaps inevitably, feels undercooked by comparison. It is perfectly watchable and enjoyable in parts, though, and Sessa (who made his screen debut in the 2023 hit The Holdovers) is excellent as Tony, playing him as a bright, bullish teenager apparently full of swaggering self-belief – yet also insecure and impressionable.
We first meet him at college applying for a creative-writing fellowship, which he’s convinced he will get, but doesn’t. Yet he still claims to be in Cape Cod as a writer, one of a string of lies woven together in the hope of impressing pretty Nancy (nicely played by actress Emilia Jones, daughter of Aled). Antonio Banderas and Leo Woodall crop up later, as the story goes on.
Ultimately, the film raises more questions about Bourdain’s life than it answers but, if you’re only familiar with him in passing, this should provide something to chew on. Available to buy and rent at home on Amazon, Apple, Sky etc. (106 minutes)
