Tony Isn’t Just About Anthony Bourdain. It’s About Being Alive: Review

When Matt Johnson’s Tony introduces Dominic Sessa as its 19-year-old protagonist, he doesn’t introduce himself as Anthony. Most people don’t even bother using his nickname, instead calling him some variety of jerk or asshole. Most people are right about him. Bursting with black-leather-jacket-with-the-price-tag-still-on arrogance, Tony wants to be a writer, making big plans for a writing fellowship he assumes he’s going to get from Vassar. When the fellowship goes to someone else, he packs up his stuff and follows a girl (Emilia Jones) to Cape Cod — the sort of decision you make when you’re young, dumb, and full of… Great ideas. It’s a straightforward kickoff to a story about a life-changing summer — a bildungsroman like the one Tony confidently pitched in his fellowship interview. The twist is that this is no ordinary summer for Tony, who is destined to grow up to become Anthony Bourdain, the industry-changing chef whose legacy hovers over the culinary world to this day. Because biopics have grown to have a negative connotation (“Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays” casts a very long shadow), many recent projects based on real-life people try to avoid bein...