Pop Culture Happy Hour - Tony and What’s Making Us Happy

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

In the new film Tony, we meet chef and author Anthony Bourdain before he was in the public eye. He was a wayward, overconfident young guy, and, as played by Dominic Sessa, kind of a piece of work. The movie focuses on a pivotal summer in 1975, when Tony worked in his first kitchen, a tiny hole-in-the-wall in Provincetown. But does the film break out of the familiar biopic formula to tell a compelling story?Do you like biopics about complicated artists? Check out:‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ is better than your average biopicIn 'A Complete Unknown,' Timothée Chalamet captures the idea of Bob DylanConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Hey, hey, before we get to the show, we've got a quick ask for you. If Pop Culture Happy Hour has ever helped you explain Barbenheimer, survive a Marvel phase, or pretend you understood Severance, do us a favor and leave a five-star review. Thanks so much. Bourdain was a huge part of how people became fascinated by chefs and kitchens. Both the way that really high-end kitchens work and the way that kind of regular kitchens work.

And, you know, he did so much to make people interested in restaurants that I think, I think it's hard to imagine the bear, you know, existing without Bourdain having existed first. Yeah, absolutely. Well, most of us know Anthony Bourdain as the charismatic foodie behind the book Kitchen Confidential and shows like no reservations. But before he was in the public eye, he was just Tony, a wayward, overconfident young guy who was kind of a piece of work. At least that's how he's portrayed in a new movie about his early life. He's played by Dominic Sessa, and it focuses on the pivotal summer of 1975 when Bourdain worked in his first kitchen, a tiny hole in the wall, in Provincetown, on Cape Cod. I'm Aisha Harris. This is NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, and it's just me and my co-host today, Linda Holmes.

Hello, Linda. Hello, Aisha. Well, I'm very excited to talk to you about this movie. And look, when Tony begins, he's a student at Vassar, an inspiring author. and he fails to procure a fellowship, so he decides on a whim to follow his crush Nancy to Provincetown for the summer. She's played by Amelia Jones. While there, he stumbles upon a dishwashing job in a restaurant run by this meticulous, no-nonsense chef played by Antonio Benderas. And like plenty of coming-of-age stories before it, he gets into some trouble,

awkwardly tries to woo Nancy, and discovers a deep appreciation for culinary life. Tony is directed by Matt Johnson and is in theaters now. And Linda, I'm going to kick it off with you. I feel as though you probably have had some sort of relationship with Anthony Burdain's work before he died. So I'm curious to hear about that and also how this movie shaked out for you. I did really like this movie. I was a big fan of Bordane. I had seen a lot of his work on television, enjoyed him very much as a, like, you know, he was a judge on top chef for a short time and things like that. I had read some of his work. I also weirdly sat at a table with him at a book publishing thing one time. And he was just like very nice and normal and friendly and

served me salad and, you know, things like that. I think they made a couple of really good decisions with this movie. One of which is the historical details, the accuracy of the specific biographical details are quite loose, right? Some of this sort of happened. I don't think that the Antonio Banderas chef maps necessarily to a specific one person. There's all also a coworker, played by Leo Woodall, who I also think doesn't necessarily map onto a specific one person. And I based that on having gone back to Kitchen Confidential and kind of read some of the stuff about this phase of his life. And in fact, the filmmakers have talked about the fact that this sort of combines a couple of summers. And, you know, he didn't really go all by himself. And, you know, that isn't really when he first connected with Nancy. I think it is so smart to give yourself the freedom not to be completely one to one. because that's not necessarily the way to make a good movie. I think what you want to do is be true to trying to explain this phase of this person's life and what you understand it to have felt like and how you understand it to have affected him.

And I think that feels very authentic to what I know of him, even though the specific details in some cases are, I think, made up. The other thing I really like is, you know, you and I've talked about biopics many times. And one thing about biopics is that I tend to prefer ones that take a small slice of someone's life and cover it in detail rather than the ones that wind up feeling like they tried to film the person's entire Wikipedia page. So I think taking this moment in his life, not the moment when he was the most famous, right? Yeah. Taking this formative moment in his life and focusing really closely on that is a more interesting film than it would have been. if they had tried to pull back and show you his whole life, it also allows you to cast Dominic Sessa, who I was a huge fan of from the holdovers, and who I think is an inspired bit of casting here.

I think he's very good. But yeah, I like this a lot. What did you think? Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I was a devout or close follower of Braneen, but I knew who he was, and I did appreciate what he did for this idea of sort of good food can come from anywhere. It doesn't have to be the best, the most Michelin Star restaurant, whatever. For sure. And I love that approach to it. And he seems like a really sort of carous. I understood the draw to him.

And I agree with you. Like I think the best way to approach that kind of person and that kind of life is the way they do it here, which is focused on the one summer. And even if that means, you know, playing fast and loose with some of the details, you still get an essence or a sense of who he might have been at that time in his life. And so I liked that. I felt though throughout the entire movie I was like this just feels like lots of other movies I've seen. I mean, I think that's sort of like the tradeoff that you get when you try to focus on one part, like before he's famous and before all that happens. And how so much of what happens in this film is kind of what could happen to a lot of people in their lives. It's a very coming of age.

This is my summer. Wild things happened. I got into some trouble. And there was nothing particularly. for me at least special about it in a way that made it stand out for me. And so by the end of it, I was just kind of like, that was pleasant. It feels like a very sort of mid-sized crowd pleaser. Feels like a throwback to like 2005. It could have come out then. It just didn't quite stick to me in the way that I, you know, kind of wanted it to. I do think for me, it gets the most interesting

and kind of comes alive when we get to understand more who chef is. I think Antonio Banderas is so, so good in this role. Just, you know, playing this kind of, he doesn't say too many words at first, but you know he commands the kitchen. And I do enjoy the moments in the kitchen where we see just how kind of, like, gross and weird it is. You see it's like the rag-tag bunch of men in the kitchen, different ages, whatever. They have their banter. very kind of the bear in a way. And I, I know, no, I enjoyed that part. But it did just feel at the end of it like,

okay, I'm glad I saw this movie, but I'm not sure it really stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right when you say it has a lot in common with some other coming of age stories. I think for me, what made it feel special was, it's hard to know, like, would I have cared about this if I didn't know that he was, going to become Anthony Bordane, right? And this is the question that comes up also with movies like The Fableman. If you didn't know that was Steven Spielberg, would it be a good story? Like, would it be a story that you would care about, right? And I think that's always the question.

But you can't make yourself go back and not know that this is Anthony Bourdain. Right. Knowing that it's him, I do feel like the film takes some opportunities to try to get you to understand how he developed a not just a love of food, but also an interest in the social elements of how people eat and cook, which was so much a part of the kind of travel work that he did, was so much about being really into kind of diving into communities through food. And I think one of the things they concentrate on the film is that in this Provincetown,

environment. One of the things that he learned about was these kind of beach clam bakes and the striper run and things like that that are all about the ritual and community of food. I think they do a good job of explaining that this kid, it's not the bear where he's obsessed with the idea of fine dining itself. He's much more interested in how this becomes part of people's lives. And I think they do a good job of setting that up. I also just think, and this is partly just my bias towards Sessa, but I think that nailing that quality of being very charismatic in a very specific way that doesn't work on everybody, but is sort of interestingly magnetic. That's sort of what I think stands out to me in this portrayal. I don't think you're wrong, though.

that it is a coming of age movie that feels like a lot of other ones. But I guess I don't really mind because it's a kind of movie that A, I like, and that B, they don't make as often as they once did. So I'm always happy to see it. I think the sense of place is really nice. I really get a feel for like that restaurant and that. I like the fact that it's kind of a small kitchen. It's not a fancy kitchen because the restaurant's not.

a fancy restaurant. Right. Yeah. Ultimately, it worked on me. Yeah. I think what makes this type of movie hard to talk about beyond that is just like it really does come down to, I think, in this case, like, how much do you care about, you know, the person who this is all sensibly about.

And not that I don't care about Anthony Burdain, that's not at all, but like coming at it from this perspective. And I can imagine someone, you know, people sometimes just go to movies and they don't know anything about it or they don't know what it's about. And you could still have sense of way, if you're not paying close attention, you can just be like, oh, this is a nice movie. It's in Provincetown, and boys will be boys. And there's a whole long montage between Tony and then Sal, who's the Leo Woodle character, who Sal is just kind of like the bad boy who is, you know, in a different time, you would have just been like, oh, that guy's a bad guy. But I think now it's just like, I'm like, this is not good.

He's awful. He's doing Coke, breaking windows, taking. taking stolen cars and joy rides. Like, it's not good behavior. Sexy dirtbag. He's a sexy dirtbag. Yeah, he's a sexy dirtbag. And look, I don't mind it, but I also just, I don't know, I felt that out of remove at the end of it all.

But at the same time, I can't knock the fact that, like, I'm glad this movie was made. Like, because, again, it feels like a throwback. It feels like a midsize movie. And it feels like a crowd pleaser. I saw it in a pretty packed house, a press screening, preview screening. And, you know, people were enjoying it. they were loving it and eating it up. And I don't know.

That's fun. I like that this can exist, even if it's not quite my thing. And I'm going to probably forget about it very quickly. And, you know, but the performances, yes. The performances are good, solid, strong. And again, Antonio Banderas is just, he is aging, like, fine wine in all the ways. Not just, not just physically, but also, like, just this presence, this gravitas that he brings to this character is really nice. I agree.

And I will say one other thing that I think. I appreciated about it as somebody who does know kind of the story of Anthony Bourdain's life. And that is, this is somebody who, after this phase of his life, as he went forward, after this moment at the end of this film, where he kind of finds himself and he decides he's going to go to the Culinary Institute of America. The CIA. The CIA, which he did in real life. After that, this is somebody who experienced a lot of pain, right? A lot of issues with addiction. a lot of issues with depression and ultimately died by suicide.

And one of the things that I really appreciate about this movie is that when you watch it, you think, oh, this is somebody where they're showing you that he had this tremendously important moment that allowed him to find a lot of satisfaction in his life and a lot of very special experiences. And he was able to touch and meet and know and, and teach a lot of people, right? Yeah. And none of that is undone by all the pain that he experienced later. You watch a film like this, and so often you feel like that coming into your own ending is setting you up for like,

and from there on, it was clear skies, right? Yeah. And you know that was not the case for him at all. And I like the fact that the movie still takes the position. This was important. These people helped him. This was meaningful in his life. No matter what he ran into later,

I like the fact that the film concentrates on what he was able to do and learn and find in the world and to have in many ways a good life as somebody who did astonishing things. I like the fact that I walked out of, of this thinking, I wish it had been easier for this kid, the person this kid is going to become. But I'm also really glad that this happened and that he found this path to be on.

And I think that's another good decision when it comes to focusing on a small part of somebody's life. Because I think if this had followed him all the way up through all of those difficulties, it might very well have felt sensational to me or something. along those lines, and it doesn't at all. No, no. It's only if you know that, then it has this dimension. If you don't know that, you can appreciate it for what it is, right? Right.

A really special and important summer that sort of happened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely, there's a moment where I thought we were going to go down that path of like, oh, no, like, is he going to start trying very, very hard drugs? And is that going to happen? And it hints at it but doesn't go there. It is more about him, as opposed to having to overcoming sort of addiction. It's more about him having to overcome being his own version of a jerk bag, right?

Like being his own kind of like compulsive liar and slacker-esque. Like there's a repeated bit with the chef having to wake him up because he's crashing on chefs beachfront. It's like as things go, it's actually not a bad setup, but he's crashing on his hammock on the porch. And chef has a repeated bit where he's splashing him with water to wake him up because he cannot wake up really enough. The fact that it avoids those cliches is, again, why even if it didn't quite rise too memorable for me, it at least doesn't feel like it is exploiting Bourdain's legacy. It just feels like, you know, a nice way of looking at who he was then or what we know of who he was. And admitting that, like, he was kind of, it was human.

He was someone who was not perfect, but yet he was able to tap into something through chef and through these other people around him. That, as you said, Linda, like, he really kind of got to understand food from the perspective of how it's integrated into lives. And that's a great. Right. Great thing to see. Yes. And I think the other really smart decision that they make along those same lines is that they open the movie with a quote from him from Kitchen Confidential. Yes.

In which he says, I was, to be frank, a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive, and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking. What that does for me, when they show you that quote at the beginning, is it tells you about this kid who is all those things. Yes. Right? It tells you, this is a man who will one day understand this about himself. Exactly. So they don't tell you every difficulty he's ever going to go through. They don't tell you all of the ways the story's going to end.

They tell you, however, they promise you at the beginning. The road for this guy eventually takes him to, I was a jerk and I needed everything negative that happened to me. And he becomes very self-aware. And for me, that allows me to enjoy a story of a guy who otherwise I might look at and be like, can we not glamorize this? guy acting like a jerk and, you know, sort of being pushy with girls, if you know that later he's going to come to an understanding of himself, it becomes much easier to take. So I think that's a, that was a really smart decision of something to highlight right at the beginning of the movie. Yeah, yeah. And frankly, we need more of those stories where like people are jerks,

whether they're men or women or whatever, but then come out on the other side of it because people can grow. People can, if not fundamentally change, they can at least change the way they see the world and how they react to the world. And that's just nice to see and nice to think about. And that's where they give you that promise, really. Exactly. Exactly. Well, I think we can both agree that this is a nice movie to check out, especially if you're a Burdain fan, but also if you just enjoy coming-of-age stories and want to go and see it in a theater, it's a crowd-bleaser. And I think we can't get enough of those. So up next, we're going to be talking about what's making us happy this week. All right, we're back, and now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week,

what's making us happy. Linda, kick us off. All right. As people who listen to this show know, I am an avid reader of thriller novels. And relatively recently, the New York Times, in an effort to kind of expand their horizons in genre, which I think is great, put out a list of the 50 best thriller books of the 21st century. Yes, I saw this, yes. And I went through it, and certainly there are some that I have read, but there are quite a few that I have not read. So I have started working my way through some of the ones that I had not read.

And this week, I read a book called My Sister, The Serial Killer, which was written by Oinka Braithwaite. And it came out in 2018 in the United States. And it's set in Nigeria, and it's about a woman who's a nurse. She has a younger sister who, and this is not a spoiler, this is the premise of the book. Her younger sister has killed three of her boyfriends, always saying, like, they were doing something to me. I was acting in self-defense.

And the sister has helped her clean up the body and all of this stuff. And again, this is all set up. So she's obviously living with this very significant secret. As I said, she's a nurse. She works at a hospital, and there's a doctor there that she has a crush on. And she's sort of the more plain sister. The serial killer sister is the more glamorous sister. And sure enough, one day the glamorous sister shows up at work, and the doctor that she has a crush on who she knows to be this very kind and lovely man seems to be getting a crush on her sister, who she knows kills her boyfriends.

It's a relatively short book. It is a really, really punchy book. It is beautifully written. I was delighted to pick up this book because of this list. So making me happy this week is both the list and the book, my sister, the serial killer. Look, I know lists can be very polarizing, but one of the benefits of these kinds of lists is the fact that it can hopefully turn people on to things that they wouldn't have otherwise checked out. out. So case and point. Absolutely. Absolutely. This was the number six book on the list and someone asked me on blue sky. Is it really the sixth best thriller of the 21st century? And I said, I think that's the wrong way to think about a list like this. It's just a list of real good books. And this is a real good book. So certainly that is making me happy this week. How about you? What's making you happy this week is the album Beard by Sid. Sid is probably one of my favorite artists working in. this sort of alt-r-n-B space right now.

She came out of the Odd Future Music Collective, and she's also the co-founder and frontwoman of the alt-r-nb band, the intranet. But this is her third solo album, and I love the album. Sonically, it's beautiful. You've got some 80s sounds, 80s electronic sounds,

you've got more contemporary sounds. My favorite song right now off the album might be any time, which features James Fontleroy. It's produced by the great Raphael Sadiq, Let's hear a little bit of that right now. So that is anytime the harmonies, the blending of the voices, beautiful, gorgeous, love it. And Sid is just, I don't know, she's doing really great work here, and I love it.

So that is the album, Beard. You should go check it out if you haven't already. and that's what's making me happy this week. That brings us to the end of our show. Linda, thanks so much for being here. I'm glad we got to talk about Tony and I hope people do really seek this movie out. Absolutely.

Yeah, it'll plead you, I think. This episode was produced by Mike Katzv, Liz Metzger, and Hapsa Fathema, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, come in provides our theme music, and thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris. We'll see you all next week.

Thank you.