A24's forthcoming biopic "Tony" reimagines Anthony Bourdain not through the fame and tragedy of his later life, but as a teenager, focusing on a formative summer he spent working in a Provincetown restaurant in 1975. Director and co-writer Matt Johnson, who had never read Bourdain's memoir "Kitchen Confidential" nor watched his television shows, was instead drawn to this little-known chapter of the chef's youth, crafting a coming-of-age story rather than a conventional celebrity biopic.

Dominic Sessa, previously praised for "The Holdovers", stars as the young "Tony", a self-described "spoiled, miserable, narcissistic" teenager who lies to impress his parents and his crush, Nancy (Emilia Jones), before fleeing to Cape Cod after being rejected from a writing fellowship. There he talks his way into a dishwashing job at a seafood restaurant, sleeping on its porch, and is taken under the wing of a jaded former Michelin-track chef played by Antonio Banderas. Reviewer Pete Hammond calls it a "richly human portrait" that becomes surprisingly engaging, comparing the audience's growing investment in the flawed young protagonist to rooting for Rocky.