The Bulwark ·Smart escape
‘Tony’ Review
by Sonny Bunch
Published 2026-08-21 21:04:17+00:00
How does a lying college student find grace in the back of a restaurant kitchen?
0:00 / 10:37 · Narrator Rasalgethi
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Context
Before he was a globe-trotting television icon, Anthony Bourdain was a young, failing cook lying his way through a summer in Provincetown. A 21 August 2026 review in The Bulwark turns to a new biopic that strips away the myth of the famous chef to focus on those messy origins. The central question becomes surprisingly spiritual: how does a chronic liar eventually find the grace to write something real?
Show notes
A pair of film reviews examining how two new releases handle their genres. The first looks at Matt Johnson's Tony, a biopic that frames Anthony Bourdain's early restaurant days in Provincetown as a religious redemption story. The second evaluates Jane Schoenbrun's horror movie Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, arguing that its attempt to parody 1980s slashers fails due to inconsistent camera work and borrowed ideas.