{"id":32796,"date":"2026-08-08T16:30:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32796"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:30:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:30:25","slug":"dominic-sessa-summons-the-rapscallion-spirit-of-anthony-bourdain-in-the-exhilarating-tender-tony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=32796","title":{"rendered":"Dominic Sessa Summons the Rapscallion Spirit of Anthony Bourdain in the Exhilarating, Tender Tony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<section>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/blt33bbc96a7ec9707c\/6a74d7043c19f0dee422996c\/https_cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_e277cfa93b218f00e2cf5b544ad4837bbfe3158f-5042x3361.jpg?branch=production\" \/><figcaption>Dominic Sessa and Leo Woodall in Tony \u2014Courtesy of A24<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<p>Before the late Anthony Bourdain was a charismatic, <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5306228\/anthony-bourdain-curiosity-queens\/\" target=\"_self\">adventurous TV personality<\/a>\u2014and even before he\u2019d become a <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5306074\/anthony-bourdain-interview-quotes\/\" target=\"_self\">best-selling writer<\/a>, with his fantastically disreputable 2000 memoir <em>Kitchen Confidential<\/em>\u2014he was a bright but annoying kid enrolled at Vassar and, as he himself has said, \u201cbadly in need of a good ass-kicking.\u201d Matt Johnson\u2019s exhilarating and tender film <em>Tony<\/em> is only sort-of a biopic: It covers just a few months of <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5307208\/anthony-bourdain-restaurant-owners\/\" target=\"_self\">Bourdain\u2019s life<\/a>, the summer of 1975, which he spent sweating away in the kitchen of a small, bustling restaurant in Provincetown. But it\u2019s a captivating origin story, detailing the bumpy rise of a ne\u2019er-do-well who made good, even as he lied, cheated, and partied his way through one gloriously wayward, depraved summer.<\/p>\n<p>Dominic Sessa\u2014who gave the soulful, bratty performance at the center of Alexander Payne\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6329153\/the-holdovers-review\/\" target=\"_self\"><em>The Holdovers<\/em><\/a>\u2014stars as 19-year-old Anthony, only back in 1975, he preferred the breezier, shortened version of his name. After failing to get the writer\u2019s fellowship he\u2019d applied for, he leaves his family\u2019s home in New Jersey and heads to Provincetown, in pursuit of the girl he has a crush on, Emilia Jones\u2019s Nancy. Distraught at learning that she already seems to have a hot boyfriend, he gets drunk at\u2014and is ejected from\u2014a local eatery. But the owner who\u2019d thrown him out\u2014known only as Chef, and played, in a marvelous, multilayered performance by <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5592027\/cannes-review-pedro-almodovar-pain-and-glory\/\" target=\"_self\">Antonio Banderas<\/a>\u2014takes pity on him after finding him passed out in the street. Chef allows young Tony to spend a night on his porch, sleeping in a rope hammock. One night stretches out to a whole summer. And for some reason only he can intuit, Chef gives the young rapscallion a job in the kitchen, even though Tony has no restaurant experience and, perhaps worse yet, no kitchen safety training.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/blta3fa3f20eb403788\/6a74db58bf22b20c24951a1b\/https_cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_2527076fc85985fa819a1b0b21a9b0612914ab7d-5870x3913.jpg?branch=production\" \/><figcaption>Antonio Banderas and Dominic Sessa in Tony \u2014Courtesy of A24<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/section>\n<section>\n<p>This is how Tony, who will eventually become Anthony, falls for the restaurant life: The chaos of the kitchen, the unruly, often drug-addicted personalities, the power to put together meals that people can enjoy with friends, and maybe even remember long after the fact. Sessa is perfect as the swain Bourdain: He\u2019s got that just-fallen-out-of-bed look\u2014perhaps because he literally <em>has<\/em> just fallen out of bed, or, more accurately, a hammock\u2014but he\u2019s also hungry and inquisitive in a touching way. At first charged with the lowly task of dishwashing, he furtively watches his <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5306336\/anthony-bourdain-ferran-adria-rene-redzepi-danny-bowien\/\" target=\"_self\">kitchen colleagues<\/a>\u2014including <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7380764\/vladimir-netflix-ending-explained\/\" target=\"_self\">Leo Woodall\u2019s<\/a> Sal, who becomes both a friend and a terrible influence\u2014as they expertly shuck oysters, or slam the lever on a heavy-duty potato slicer as if it were the arm of a slot machine, usually while talking trash about one another. Suddenly, he\u2019s found the place where he belongs. Banderas\u2019 Chef spots Tony\u2019s spark of potential before he does: One of the cardinal rules he\u2019s instituted for his employees is that they must never be even 15 minutes late. To that end, every workday morning he rouses Tony from the snoozy coziness of his hammock with a bucket of water. He doesn\u2019t want this kid to fail, and though Tony has loving, albeit perhaps too permissive, parents (they\u2019re played by Rich Sommer and Dagmara Dominczyk), this is just the kick in the pants he needs.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson\u2014perhaps best known for the 2023 <em>Blackberry,<\/em> a kind of biopic about the once-ubiquitous, now-quaint pocket device\u2014shapes this material with both breeziness and a kind of tough-love compassion, and the track list he\u2019s assembled summons the spirit of 1975 like a ghost. Whether you were around for that era or not, if Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers&#8217; wistful ode to imaginary love \u201cGirlfriend\u201d doesn\u2019t instantly transport you, the Brothers Johnson\u2019s \u201cStrawberry Letter 23\u201d will. Though <em>Tony <\/em>covers one brief era in the life of an eventually famous person, its overarching power is that it conjures the vibe of wayward summers we may have experienced in our own lives, seemingly endless stretches of time filled with either longing or reckless behavior or both. To quote another Jonathan Richman song: That summer feeling\u2019s gonna haunt you the rest of your life.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dominic Sessa and Leo Woodall in Tony \u2014Courtesy of A24 Before the late Anthony Bourdain was a charismatic, adventurous TV personality\u2014and even before he\u2019d become a best-selling writer, with his fantastically disreputable 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential\u2014he was a bright but annoying kid enrolled at Vassar and, as he himself has said, \u201cbadly in need of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/blt33bbc96a7ec9707c\/6a74d7043c19f0dee422996c\/https_cdn.sanity.io_images_xq1bjtf4_production_e277cfa93b218f00e2cf5b544ad4837bbfe3158f-5042x3361.jpg?branch=production","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}