Why I’m Optimistic About the Bourdain BiopicSeacia Pavao
If you think we’ve hit peak music biopics, get ready for the next wave of celebrity biographical dramas. A24 will soon release Tony, which aims to chronicle the fateful summer of 1976 when a young, 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain embarked on a lifelong career as a chef. Dominic Sessa, who starred in the acclaimed 2023 drama The Holdovers, stars as a young Bourdain.
On May 5, A24 released the trailer for Tony. In a welcome change of pace of other biopics which typically trace their subject’s first steps until whatever endpoint the story calls for, Tony is a period piece set primarily in 1976. That’s when Bourdain was a Vassar College dropout who worked at a Massachussetts seafood restaurant while pursuing a writing career. In the movie, Sessa’s Bourdain works for a Brazilian chef, played by Antonio Banderas, and his experiences seed what would become his life as a celebrity chef, travel documentarian, and yes, a best-selling author. In 2018, Bourdain died by suicide in France.
You can watch the trailer for Tony below.
While it’s reductive to describe Tony as A24’s answer to The Bear, it’s hard not to feel the same vibes. Though Tony doesn’t have the same expressionistic filmmaking as the Hulu series (at least from what we see in the trailer), it’s still shaping up to be an emotional story about a complicated individual in the pressure-cooker environment of kitchens and a life in shambles. The movie also explores Bourdain’s relationship with his first wife, Nancy Putoski, played in the movie by Emilia Jones. (They married in 1985 and divorced in 2005.)
Throw in 1970s set dressing and velvety rock ‘n’ roll needle drops, and you’ve got a movie that will make dudes everywhere take up smoking and dramatize their weekly meal prep all summer long.
In 2023, Sessa broke out big time from his performance on The Holdovers, which earned him a nomination for “Most Promising Performer” by the Chicago Film Critics Association and “Best Breakthrough Performance” by the Toronto Film Critics Association. He was also nominated for a BAFTA and won “Best Young Performer” at the Critics’ Choice Awards in 2024. After spending last year in supporting roles for big studio features, Sessa seems primed to once again serve up something worthwhile.
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