Is Tony, A24’s Anthony Bourdain Biopic, Worth Watching?

A24’s Anthony Bourdain film, Tony, is set to come out of 14 August in the UK.

But the biopic, starring Dominic Sassa as a young Tony, Antonio Banderas as his Chef, Emilia Jones as love interest Nancy, and Leo Woodall as fellow restaurant worker Sal, has already received verdicts from multiple critics.

“A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life,” the movie’s synopsis reads.

Here’s what reviewers think so far:

Reviews are generally good – it has already earned an outstanding 97% on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. But some critics think Nancy’s storyline is a bit thin, while others say the unavoidable shadow of Bourdain’s real-life suicide can’t help but colour the film for fans.

“This is a strange film in some ways. It is watchable and entertaining, but its feel-good trajectory is compromised by what we know of the author… In a way, Tony is the author, the narrator who just bleakly sees it all, but for a writer he sometimes doesn’t have much to say about the situation in which he finds himself.”

“[Director Matthew] Johnson recognises how this, at heart, is a coming-of-age story about a rising star who’s learning to be unburdened by a future that’s better than he could ever imagine – a kid who’s learning that no one can become the person they pretend to be without being the person they actually are along the way. Tony struggles for an ending, but it doesn’t really need one; the real fun here lies in paving the way to parts unknown.”

“Sessa adds such depth and texture to his Caulfield riff that it feels ultimately unnecessary for Johnson to add any explicit reference to the darker, sadder shades of Bourdain’s psyche. It’s already there… The audience knows who Bourdain was and part of that was what a wonderful storyteller he was. And this is a wonderful story to tell.”

“It would be easy to write Tony off as something Bourdain would despise on principle. But after the documentary Roadrunner ended on such a bitter note, using an AI-generated version of Bourdain’s voice and pointing fingers over who was to blame for his suicide, Tony returns, refreshingly, to the beginning of his story.”

5) The Hollywood Reporter

“[Its] central plot thread is like a blueprint for the behind-the-scenes access to restaurant life in Bourdain’s bestselling first book, Kitchen Confidential — hazardous, intense, messy and a magnet for misfits… The relatively weak link in the script is Nancy.”

“As Tony’s troubled soul comes to the fore, acted out in ways both big and small, what’s revealed is that though he wants to be a writer, he believes in nothing. Tony is about how he finds himself by crawling out of himself. The kitchen wounds him, heals him, and becomes his crucible of faith.”

“Zeroing in on this one chequered summer in Bourdain’s life feels like an odd decision that Johnson and his co-writers (Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe) compound by giving us little to root for in their surly antihero. Even his redemptive moment rings hollow… Tony is a bland dish.”

8) The New York Post (3/4)

“If a viewer doesn’t know Bourdain from Pepin, Tony plays as a highly entertaining, heart-tugging and fictional boy-to-man vacation flick, like The Way Way Back. For the food celeb’s fans, the movie still mostly does, even if, like coming across an old photograph from a breezier time, there is the unavoidable occasional pang of sadness.”

“Despite having a poorly realised love interest, Tony, as both a film and a character, has a lot to recommend [it]… In a lot of ways, the movie itself is a lot like the kitchen that Tony primarily takes place in. It’s crass, it’s loud, it’s messy, and yet, you end up with something profound, beautiful, and exciting on your plate.”

“A hangout movie is perhaps the most fitting way for Bourdain to be brought to the screen. Though its ambitions never quite match its subject, it depicts a summer you’ll be hard-pressed not to be charmed by.”

Tony will be available in UK and Irish cinemas from August 14.