The first images from A24's Tony have arrived, and they suggest the studio understands something crucial: the best Anthony Bourdain story isn't about how he died, but how he became who he was.

Dominic Sessa - who broke out opposite Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers - stars as a 19-year-old Bourdain during the summer of 1975 in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The film follows his work in a local restaurant where he discovered his purpose through food and the people around him. Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones, and Leo Woodall round out the cast.

Director Matt Johnson, who made the brilliant BlackBerry, is an inspired choice. That film proved he can find humanity in stories about obsession and craft, which is exactly what young Bourdain's origin demands.

Casting Sessa is equally smart. The Holdovers showcased his ability to play wounded intelligence and searching vulnerability - precisely the qualities that made Bourdain's later work so compelling. The man wrote about food like a poet and traveled like someone trying to understand what connects us all. That sensibility had to start somewhere.

Provincetown in the '70s was an artistic haven, a place where misfits could find community. It's the perfect setting for a young man who didn't fit conventional molds to discover that kitchens could be his church and cooking his calling.

What A24 is doing here fits their prestige biopic strategy perfectly. They're not interested in cradle-to-grave Wikipedia adaptations. Priscilla focused on a specific relationship. The Iron Claw examined family tragedy through wrestling. Tony appears to be isolating the moment of transformation rather than attempting to summarize an entire life.

That's the right move for Bourdain, whose later years were well-documented through his own shows and writing. We know who he became. Understanding how he got there - that's the story worth telling.

Sessa has the difficult task of portraying someone millions feel they knew personally. Bourdain's absence still stings for anyone who valued his perspective. But if Tony can capture even a fraction of what made him special - the curiosity, the empathy, the refusal to settle for easy answers - it'll be worth the inevitable comparisons.

Expect this one to be in the Oscar conversation when it arrives. In Hollywood, nobody knows anything - except that A24 knows how to tell a story.