Tony, the Anthony Bourdain Film, Comes to HBO Max on November 20, and Dominic Sessa Is the Reason to Watch

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Tony came out in cinemas in August and did modestly, which is what happens to a small A24 film about a chef who died in 2018. It arrives on HBO Max on November 20 and I think that is where most people will actually see it. It is directed by Matt Johnson, who made BlackBerry, and it is not the life story. It is a few years in the 1970s and 80s when Anthony Bourdain was a line cook in New York with a heroin habit and no particular prospects.

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Dominic Sessa plays him. He was the kid in The Holdovers, and this is the first role since that asks him to carry a film, and the reviews said the same thing I thought: he has the walk, the slouch, the way Bourdain used his hands when he talked, without ever doing an impression. Variety called it his first movie-star performance. The San Francisco Chronicle gave it four stars.

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Antonio Banderas plays the chef who takes him in, and several critics called it his best work in years. Emilia Jones and Leo Woodall are in it. Johnson shoots it the way he shot BlackBerry, loose and handheld and full of overlapping talk, and the kitchen scenes feel like kitchens rather than sets. It is funny, which people forget Bourdain was.

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Not everyone loved it. Little White Lies called it entertaining but directionless, and I understand that. It is a hangout film with a sad undertow rather than a story with an arc. Roger Ebert's site gave it three and a half stars and said it avoids the easy recipes, which is the best summary I have read.

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If you loved Kitchen Confidential, this is the film of the first half of that book, and it is on a service you probably have. Will you watch it, or is a Bourdain biopic too soon?