Run time: 106 mins
A scruffy, funny and surprisingly tender portrait of Anthony Bourdain before he became a household name, this focuses on the restless young man he was rather than the legend he became.
In the summer of 1975, Tony (Dominic Sessa) heads to Provincetown after missing out on a writing fellowship, hoping to reconnect with Nancy, an old school crush. Claiming to be a successful writer, he finds somewhere to sleep by taking a dishwashing job at a seafood shack, where he falls in with womanising co-worker Sal and the veteran chef (Antonio Banderas). As his stories become increasingly elaborate, Tony also discovers that he has a surprising instinct for the kitchen.
Sessa is terrific as Tony, capturing both his swaggering confidence and the intelligence underneath it. Banderas provides a particularly strong counterpoint, while a terrific supporting cast bring their own energy to Tony’s tangled social life.
Rather than forcing a dramatic transformation, the film simply observes a young man stumbling through a formative summer. The culinary world gradually begins to pull him in, even as he remains convinced that writing is his destiny. That uncertainty gives the story its appeal, leaving us curious about what comes next