Tony and What’s Making Us Happy

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 biopic https://www.npr.org/2025/10/24/nx-s1-5582364/springsteen-deliver-me-from-nowhere-is-better-than-your-average-biopic In 'A Complete Unknown,' Timothée Chalamet captures the idea of Bob Dylan https://www.npr.org/2024/12/27/1221795531/in-a-complete-unknown-timothee-chalamet-captures-the-idea-of-bob-dylan Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support 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 http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://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 https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's Flex Path learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 0:29Speaker 02

  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.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 0:57Speaker 01

  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, Lynda Holmes. Hello, Lynda.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  Hello, Ayesha.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Well, I'm very excited to talk to you about this movie. And, look, when Tony begins, he's a student at Vassar, an aspiring 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 Banderas. 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 Lynda, I'm gonna kick it off with you. I feel as though you probably have had some sort of relationship with Anthony Bourdain's work before he died.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  So I'm curious to hear about that and also how this movie shaped out for you.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  I did really like this movie. I was a big fan of Bourdain. 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?

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Some of this sort of happened. I don't think that the Antonio Banderas chef maps necessarily to a specific one person. There's also a coworker, played by Leo Woodall, who I also think doesn't necessarily map onto a specific one person. And I base 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.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  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 have 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.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  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?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  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.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  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?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I was a devout or close follower of Bourdain, 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, doesn't have to be the best, the most Michelin-starred restaurant, whatever.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And I love that approach to it. And he seems like a really sort of charismatic. 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 focus on the one, 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 trade-off that you get when you try to focus on one part, like, before he's famous and before all of 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.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  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 ragtag bunch of men in the kitchen, different ages, whatever. They have their banter, very kind of The Bear in a way. And I, I don't know, 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.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  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 gonna become Anthony Bourdain, right? And this is the question that comes up also with movies like The Fableman. If you didn't know that was Steven Spielberg.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Would it be a good story? Like, would it, would it be a story that you would care about, right?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  And I think that's always the question. But you can't make yourself go back and not know that this is Anthony Bourdain.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  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

• 8:35Speaker 02

  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, like, 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.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  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 a kind of a small kitchen. It's not a fancy kitchen because the restaurant's not a fancy restaurant.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, ultimately it worked on me.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think what 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 ostensibly about? And not that I don't care about Anthony Bourdain, 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 ostensibly, if you're not paying close attention, you could 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 Woodall.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  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 stolen cars on joy rides. Like. It's not good behavior.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Sexy dirtbag. He's a sexy dirtbag.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a sexy dirtbag. And look, I don't mind it, but I also just, I don't know, I felt that it removed 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 gonna probably forget about it very quickly and, 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.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Not just physically, but also like, just this presence, this gravitas that he brings to this character is really nice.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  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 gonna go to the Culinary Institute of America.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  The CIA.

• 12:16Speaker 02

  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, and know and teach a lot of people, right?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  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?

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  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 this thinking, I wish it had been easier for this kid, the person this kid is gonna become.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  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.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  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? A really special and important summer that sort of happened.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely, there's a moment where I thought we were gonna 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 overcome any sort of addiction, it's more about him having to overcome being his own version of a dirtbag, 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 chef's beachfront. It's like, as, as things go, it's not, actually not a bad setup, but he's crashing on his hammock on the porch.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  And chef has a repeated bit where he's splashing him with water to wake him up because he cannot wake up early enough. The fact that it avoids those cliches is again, why, even if it didn't quite. Rise to 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, he 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.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Into lives. And that's, that's a great, great thing to see.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:19Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Right? It tells you, this is a man who will one day understand this about himself.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  They don't tell you every difficulty he's ever gonna go through. They don't tell you all of the ways the story's gonna 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 gonna come to an understanding of himself, it becomes much easier to take.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  So I think that's a, that was a really smart decision of something to highlight right at the beginning of the movie.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  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.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  And that's where they give you that promise, really.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Well, I think we can both agree that this is a nice movie to check out, especially if you're a Bourdain fan. But also if you just enjoy coming of age stories and, and wanna go and see it in a theater. It's a crowd pleaser and I think we can't get enough of those. So up next, we're gonna be talking about what's making us happy this week.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more. Try it free for 14 days at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini. This message comes from BetterHelp. BetterHelp is in-network with more than 125 health plans, with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session. Don't have eligible insurance? You can still get 10% off your first month. Visit betterhelp.com/NPR to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp.com/NPR.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  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? Lynda, kick us off.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  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.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yes, I saw this, yes.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  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

• 20:42Speaker 02

  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.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  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.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Ah, look, I know lists can be very polarizing, but one of the benefits of these types of lists is the fact that it can hopefully turn people on to things that they wouldn't have otherwise checked out. So case in point.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  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?

• 22:07Speaker 01

  What's making me happy this week is the album Beard by Sid. Sid is probably one of my favorite artists working in the sort of alt-R&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&B band, The Internet. 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 "Anytime," which features James Fonteloy. It's produced by the great Raphael Siddique. Let's hear a little bit of that right now.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  So that is "Anytime." The harmony is, 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. Lynda, 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.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'll, it'll please you, I think. This episode was produced by Mike Katsev, Liz Metzger, and Hafsa Fathama, and edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy. Hello, Cummin 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.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive, and more. Try it free for 14 days at goo.gle/workspacewithgemini.

• 24:16Speaker 04

  I'm Rich Mar, host of a new podcast called RVA's Got Issues, because we've all got issues, right?

• 24:22Speaker 05

  For sure. Oh, definitely. Everybody has issues. What are you talking about?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  And do you think Richmond's got issues?

• 24:27Speaker 05

  I think every city, every county, every town has issues.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Listen to RVA's Got Issues from VPM, part of the NPR Network.