The Movie’s Called Tony, But All I See Is Antonio Banderas

This morning, A24 woke up and said, “It’s not enough for us to buy the Cherry Lane Theatre; we need to reclaim Tony nominations day.” This is the kind of greed they warn against in the Bible. Regardless, this is (probably) the only year the studio will have a movie called Tony, so why not just release its first trailer the same day as the Tony nominations and make everything a real Tonypalooza? There are worse fates. What’s most fun here is that the Tony trailer actually introduces a third Tony: Antonio Banderas, who is tapping into that salt-and-pepper-haired, soft-spoken, wise but fallible older character he once so elegantly played in Pain and Glory.

But let’s get back to the Tony of Tony. Anthony Bourdain’s legacy is so massive and complicated that it makes sense for Tony to slice off just a taste of the legendary chef and writer’s life. Directed by Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’s Matt Johnson and starring Dominic Sessa as the titular Tony, Tony is set over the course of one summer in Provincetown, when Bourdain was 19 and a real shithead, it seems, yukking it up in a kitchen that includes Leo Woodall and Stavros Halkias. Emilia Jones is in there too, mostly to be like, “Tony, can you behave for once?!” (Not really, but kind of.) It’s under the guidance of Banderas, who is playing “like a master chef,” in the words of Sessa’s Bourdain, that the chef finally gets his act together. Oysters, lobsters, and shirtless antics galore. If nothing else, this ought to spike raw-bar prices through the summer. It’s easy to deride biopics, even ones that break off a small chunk of history, but remember how propulsive Blackberry was? Tony and Tony might just find themselves in good hands after all.

Tony will be released in theaters in August.