A24 has unveiled the first trailer for Tony, its biopic of chef Anthony Bourdain starring The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa, which is slated for release in theaters in August.
Directed by Matt Johnson, the filmmaker behind Blackberry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Tony finds a 19-year-old Bourdain (Sessa) traveling to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, for a season that will change the course of his life.
The trailer opens with Bourdain in his college days. “Okay, so I’m just going to walk you through the basic vision,” he says. “It’s a coming-of-age story.”
At a bar, Bourdain catches up with a girl he knew from high school, played by Emilia Jones.
“Didn’t you punch a hole in the principal’s door?” she asks.
He assures her, though, that “a lot’s changed since high school. I’m a writer now. The truth is, I’m about to get this huge writing fellowship.”
Of course, he doesn’t get that fellowship after all, and doesn’t deal with the news well, punching a hole in the wall, getting thrown out of a bar, and landing passed out in the street.
It’s then that Bourdain heads to Provincetown, where he begins working under a chef played by Antonio Banderas.
“We open Wednesday to Sunday. Start 11:00 a.m. That means you are here at 10:45,” Banderas says. “11:00 is late. Anyone late is fired.”
After we see Bourdain bickering with his co-workers in the kitchen and getting in a fight with others, Jones’ character asks him, “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?” — and Banderas teaches Sessa’s Bourdain how to open an oyster.
“I ate these in France when I was a kid,” Bourdain says. “I said they taste like the future.”
While things get off to a rocky start in Provincetown for the famously hot-tempered Bourdain, the young culinary prodigy of course finds his way toward earning his apron, beginning to play a larger role in decision-making within Banderas’ kitchen.
“[What] we’re going to start with is a special,” he says. “Every Friday, something fancy, not pretentious. Something sexy, makes you want to f*ck. Something only you can do.”
The trailer culminates in Bourdain accepting his creative destiny, saying, “If anybody asks, I’m not a writer. I work in a kitchen.”
Written by Johnson and Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe, Tony also stars Dagmara Dominczyk, Rich Sommers, Stavros Halkias, and Leo Woodall. Producers on the project included Tim White, Trevor White, Miller, and Johnson. Check out the trailer by clicking above.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings