"I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking."
He's not wrong. The Tony (he's much too cool to let people call him Anthony) we meet at the beginning of the film is an insufferable blowhard. He tells anyone who'll listen about his great future as a writer, despite seemingly having an aversion to doing any actual writing. He assumes the panel awarding a prestigious scholarship is too stupid to see his pitch is nonsense bravado. He condescendingly explains the meaning of what he thinks are obscure words, despite not always knowing himself. While he does change over the course of the film, it's hard to map an actual character journey. That's because more than a biopic or chef's origin story, Tony is a summer vibes hangout movie.
The story takes place over the summer of 1975, where Bourdain (Dominic Sessa) bails to Cape Cod after failing to land a writing scholarship. He only heads to the sea side to pursue his crush, Nancy (Emilia Jones), but a drunken night and money issues lead to him spending the summer sleeping in a hammock out the back of a chef's house and working in said chef's small seafood restaurant. The character and events of the film are based on people and events in Bourdain's life, condensed into a single summer by movie magic.
And what a summer it is. Director Matt Johnson ditches the guerrilla filming of previous movie, "Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie", but keeps the energy, using multiple camera angles and lenses to thrust the audience into his world. It helps that the film doesn't hit the audience over the head with the period setting to the point it feels artificial. A movie set in a small seaside town in 1975 can't not mention Jaws and the soundtrack does feature period songs, but they aren't mega famous hits and are there to fit the hazy feel of the story rather than as nostalgia bait. This restraint actually makes you want to be part of this little microcosm of a time and place far more than in your face 70s signalling would have. With idyllic sunrises, sweaty banter-filled days in the kitchen and hard drinking nights, it's easy to see why our lead was won over by this way of life.
Tony's two main windows into this culinary life are young hothead Sal (Leo Woodall) and Antonio Banderas's unnamed head chef. Woodall's charm is in full effect as Sal, but he also brings a surprising amount of danger. Charismatic and a big hit with the ladies, our lead is quickly enthralled by him, but with a serious drug habit and a constant simmering violence he also represents the dark side of the kitchen. By contrast, the stern head chef may be a man of few words but he is exactly the father figure young Bordain needs. He combines the high expectations of Tony's mother and the supportiveness of his dad in one package and Banderas imbues him with typical quiet dignity and intensity.
The audience may be drawn in by this world and these characters but the effect on Tony is muted for most of the film. Despite being constantly humbled, he remains a lying, self-centred weasel for more or less the entire runtime. It is clear come the credits that this is merely the first step in a young man's journey but giving the main character such a subtle character arc is a risky move. Fortunately, you can still get behind him thank's to Sessa's fantastic central performance. It may be an extension of what he did in the brilliant "The Holdovers" rather than something new, but his mix of vulnerability and venom makes for a fascinating character.
So fans of Anthony Bourdain may be disappointed they don't get a deep dive on the legendary culinary figure and it is a shame Emilia Jones isn't given more of a chance to flesh out Nancy, given she is his chief motivating factor (and became his real life wife). Those quibbles are mostly washed away by the lapping waves of beach cook-outs and kitchen camaraderie as Tony makes you long for a way of life that probably doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did.
8 shotgun caught tuna out of 10.
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