By the time Anthony Bourdain died, aged just 61, in 2018, the six-time Emmy award-winning celebrity chef and writer had long since crossed the rubicon into the realm of pop cultural legend. A thrill-seeker and a humanist with rockstar swagger and a try everything attitude to life (“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride,” he once wrote), Bourdain burned bright and carried that heat constantly, with many of his highs — and lows — captured either on camera or in print. With A24’s borderline anti-biopic Tony however, director Matt Johnson (Blackberry) and star Dominic Sessa (The Holdovers) are set to shift our attention to Bourdain’s formative years as a 19-year-old living and working in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Check out the trailer below;
The old adage goes, “If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.” But as we see in this first trailer for Tony, it seems more like it was a case of “if you can’t handle the heat, get into the kitchen” for Anthony Bourdain, who we see here missing out on a prestigious writing fellowship, dropping out of college, and hitting the bottle (and his bedroom wall) before landing a life-changing gig working in a seafood restaurant under Antonio Banderas’ head chef, Ciro. “You work in a kitchen before?” asks Ciro as we see Bourdain fumble pots and pans. “Yeah,” deadpans the budding chef. Cue Bourdain earning his spurs in Ciro’s kitchen with new bud Sal (Leo Woodall) as he navigates a fiery relationship with love interest Nancy (Emilia Jones), develops his punk-rock approach to cooking, and begins what would go on to be a life- and career-long inquiry into the human spirit — both in himself and the world around him.
“We chose to support Tony because it is not a standard biopic and doesn’t attempt to summarize a life,” shared Bourdain’s estate in a statement explaining their support for Johnson’s film. “Guided by the vision of director Matt Johnson, the film depicts one transformative summer in 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It is an interpretation, as that part of Tony’s life will always remain somewhat unknown.” Continuing, the estate praises Tony‘s representation of Bourdain and its potential to remind viewers of its subject’s adventurous spirit. “We appreciate the portrayal of Tony’s complexity, his intellectual appetite and his conviction — qualities that eventually took him around the globe and endeared him to so many,” they write. “We hope this film serves as a reminder that every journey has a start, and that audiences see the beginnings of the man who taught us how to be better explorers on our own paths.”
We look forward to seeing what Matt Johnson, Dominic Sessa, and co have been cooking when Tony arrives in cinemas this summer. Until then, we’re off to binge all of Parts Unknown again… as if we really needed an excuse.
