Anthony Bourdain learns how to be a better chef — and a better person — in ’70s-set biopic ‘Tony’

Antonio Banderas, left, and Dominic Sessa co-star in the Anthony Bourdain biopic, “Tony.”

You may think you knew the late Anthony Bourdain, the talented (and tormented) Jersey boy — a world-famous chef, writer, and eternally adventurous television personality.

But you never met Tony.

A new movie hopes to fill that gap with a sympathetic introduction. Starring Egg Harbor Township’s Dominic Sessa, “Tony” (opening Aug. 7) focuses on the summer of 1975, when Anthony Bourdain was just beginning the process of becoming “Anthony Bourdain.”

It was not an easy transformation.

The Englewood native was only 19 and, like many college students, a little impulsive and rather self-involved. Or, to quote the late author himself, “a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking.”

One season in Provincetown provided it.

Dominic Sessa in “Tony.”

It was purely by accident, although ego and lust surely provided the fuel. Shocked that he didn’t receive a prestigious literary fellowship he had simply assumed was his, Bourdain decided to take the bus to Massachusetts. The only reason? Nancy, a Vassar classmate he had been crushing on all year, had mentioned that she was spending the summer in Provincetown.

There were just a few problems. He had very little money. He hadn’t lined up a job, or even a place to stay. And Nancy had absolutely no interest in him — in fact, she didn’t even like him.

It’s not hard to understand why, either, as the film endorses Bourdain’s own pitiless assessment of his youthful self. The teenage Tony is not only a constant braggart, but a habitual liar. And his single-minded pursuit of this young woman … well, while it might have seemed romantic once, a long time ago, today it just seems like creepy stalking.

Yet the movie still manages to keep us interested in this sometimes-annoying young man.

For one thing, he gets his deserved comeuppance quickly. Tracing his dream girl to her summer job at a pizzeria, he discovers she already has a big, brutish boyfriend. Retiring wreathed in self-pity to a local fish-and-chips place, Tony gets quickly, obnoxiously drunk, and is just as speedily thrown out into the street, beaten and robbed.

It’s hard not to feel just a little sorry for this dope.

It’s also difficult not to perk up once he falls under the spell of the people who threw him out, who surprisingly become two very powerful, very different role models. One is the fish-and-chips joint’s owner — a soulful Portuguese immigrant who is as devoted to good food as he is to hard work. The other is a happily hedonistic cook who never has met a dare he didn’t take or a drug he didn’t try.

As we watch Tony explore one path, then the other, we get an insight into his own drives — and, perhaps, into a conflict that will stay with him until the end.

From left, Antonio Banderas, Dominic Sessa and Leo Woodall in “Tony.”

Also effortlessly engendering our interest here are the three lead performances.

As Tony, Sessa has the hardest job — keeping us interested in an often-unlikable character — and rises to the occasion. It helps that the script has others constantly putting him in his place, from his unimpressed love interest to his tough-love boss. It also helps that director Matt Johnson keeps the camera close, so we can see that, however proud and petulant the youthful bravado, Tony’s eyes are always full of doubt and fear and pain.

As the quietly dignified restaurateur, Antonio Banderas is a treasure, and serves a double purpose. Yes, he embodies the annoyance of everyone else in the movie when they encounter this young man’s unearned confidence. But he is also an early model for all the workers a more mature Bourdain would go on to worshipfully praise in his memoir, “Kitchen Confidential” — uncomplaining, unstoppable immigrants who could as easily pull a mammoth cast iron pan out of a fiery broiler as they could deftly, delicately filet a flounder.

And as Tony’s co-worker Sal, Leo Woodall has the most fun. A creature of pure id, he simply does whatever he wants, snorting cocaine on the job, punching out people in bars, and sleeping with every woman he can (carving a literal notch from their bedroom doors as he leaves, for a souvenir). He is a completely free and totally disreputable person. As a result, in comparison, we begin to see Tony not as a failed young man, but a flawed one, and one perhaps capable of redemption.

Emilia Jones in “Tony.”

With so much time given these three men, other characters get short shrift. Typically, the character of Nancy (played by Emilia Jones) is little more than a love object for Tony to obsess over — we get no idea of her own hopes and dreams, or how this habitual liar eventually wins her over. The people of color who work with Tony are even more ignored, while the scruffy boho charms of ’70s Provincetown — still untouched by influencers and high-end real estate development — are barely present.

Also largely subdued is any singular storytelling style. Johnson had another hit this year with the idiosyncratic “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” and delivered a truly adventurous, entertaining picture in 2023 with “BlackBerry” — films buoyed by audacious performances and tasty soundtrack choices. There is some great acting and good music here, too, but the pace feels a little less frenetic, and the editing a mite less challenging.

Finally given an American project to helm, the Canadian director seemed determined to play it safe — and that is something Bourdain never did. But “Tony” still succeeds wonderfully in entertaining us, and giving us an unexpected look at a man we thought we knew.

Until we realized we really never did.

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