Director Matt Johnson's new biographical film Tony, starring Dominic Sessa as young chef Anthony Bourdain alongside Antonio Banderas, has opened in Russian cinemas.
The 106-minute American feature film arrived in theatres on September 3, 2026. The movie offers a fresh perspective on the biopic genre by focusing on the formative teenage years of the late celebrity chef, author, and television personality who transformed modern culinary culture.
Written about by Lenta.ru film critic Yaroslav Zabaluev, the production brings together a cast that includes Emilia Jones and Leo Woodall alongside Sessa and Banderas. Banderas plays the role of young Bourdain's kitchen mentor, serving as the central authority figure during a pivotal summer in the protagonist's youth.
A Summer in Provincetown
The story begins in 1975 when 17-year-old Anthony Bourdain asks everyone to call him Tony, a nickname that conceals his deep self-doubt. Despite his internal insecurity, the curly-haired teenager displays an arrogant demeanor, carrying nunchucks tucked behind his belt and behaving provocatively whenever possible. Passionate about literature, Tony dreams of becoming a writer even more successful than J.D. Salinger, the acclaimed American author of The Catcher in the Rye.
Tony applies for a grant with a proposal for his debut coming-of-age novel, mispronouncing the German literary term bildungsroman with difficulty, pomp, and an error. Confident of success, he boasts to everyone that he already has an advance in his pocket. However, every publishing house rejects his application. To hide his embarrassing failure, he flees New York for Provincetown, a coastal resort town located at the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
Tony heads to the seaside resort after his former classmate Nancy, played by Emilia Jones, promises to spend her summer there. He resolves to win her affection to drown out his frustration over the publishing rejections. Upon arriving, Tony discovers that Nancy already has a boyfriend. In response, he gets heavily intoxicated, instigates a fight, and loses all his money in the process.
The next morning, Tony receives a bucket of cold water poured over his head by the Chef, played by Antonio Banderas, who owns a local diner that serves just three and a half dishes. Desperate for income, the young man convinces the strict owner to hire him and grant him permission to sleep in a hammock on the premises. Tony enters the kitchen as a dishwasher, where he begins to absorb hard life lessons.
Tony receives instruction by day from the Chef and by evening from junior cook Sal, played by Leo Woodall. Sal is portrayed as a figure who acquires sex at parties as effortlessly as he shucks oysters while maintaining other dangerous habits. The kitchen crew also features a cheerful, heavy-set cook played by Stavros Halkias, whose presence resembles Russian director Alexei Balabanov, and a waitress named Maria, through whom Tony eventually discovers his true calling in the culinary world.
The Real Anthony Bourdain
The real Anthony Bourdain was a quintessential 20th-century New Yorker whose approach to culinary arts drew inspiration from the cultural era of Andy Warhol. Bourdain realized that broadcasting his distinct alter egos directly to audiences could turn him into a star. In 2000, while working as an established chef, he published his memoir Kitchen Confidential, which quickly became a bestseller. The success launched his career into television, where his shows satisfied viewers' appetites indirectly while providing vicarious thrill-seeking from a safe distance.
In 2018, Bourdain died by suicide during a business trip to France, leaving behind circumstances and motives that remain unclear. His death finalized the public persona that producers sought to bring to the screen. Filming a dramatic feature took nearly eight years of searching for the right lead actor. During that period, CNN and HBO released a documentary on Bourdain that generated controversy for using an artificial intelligence voice clone to read part of his off-screen commentary, easing anticipation for a narrative film.
Production and Casting Choices
Producers Tim White and Trevor White approached Canadian director Matt Johnson after the success of his 2023 film BlackBerry, which chronicled the rise and fall of the pioneering smartphone. Johnson had spent his career making films focused exclusively on Canada and Canadian figures, having once pledged in an interview never to depart from that patriotic principle. Consequently, he initially greeted the producers' pitch for the Bourdain project without enthusiasm.
Johnson changed his mind after meeting Dominic Sessa in New York. The director had wanted to collaborate with Sessa since seeing his breakout performance in the 2023 movie The Holdovers three years earlier. The project offered both Johnson and Sessa an opportunity to explore their own experiences of growing up while providing a suitable reason for Johnson to break his self-imposed rule against non-Canadian subjects.
Although the producers offered Johnson a completed script, he reworked the screenplay extensively to transform it into an auteur project. Johnson explained that he prioritizes character logic over strict historical facts when building film reality. Bourdain himself employed a similar philosophy in his autobiographical writings, frequently blending memory with creative invention.
Critical Reception and Performances
The film's dramatic structure and promotional campaign lean into the tendency of food critics to treat Bourdain as a saintly figure. The narrative constructs a triad of archetypes consisting of Sessa as the Son, Banderas as the Father, and Woodall in a spiritual role of opposite sign. The Chef calls Sal a sin eater, referencing a funeral ritual participant who absorbs the darkness of the deceased so they may enter heaven. Banderas's character evokes John the Baptist by pouring water on Tony and taking him to church, while Sessa's profile in close-up shots bears a resemblance to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
In the film, the young protagonist does not write, as he lacks the time, leaving his literary inclination expressed only through a habit of frequent, uninventive lying. Sessa operates within his established persona of a charming rogue, remaining behind a mask rather than delivering a groundbreaking performance. The film critic noted that Banderas provides the most human performance in the picture, delivering work deserving of supporting actor nominations during major awards season.
Shot by cinematographer Michael Bauman, who previously worked on Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another, Tony mirrors Licorice Pizza in construction and spirit. Rather than following a rigid biographical timeline, the film operates like a wimmelbuch, a children's picture book overflowing with activity, creating a panoramic landscape composed of vignettes of varying mood and intensity under soft sunset light.
