Boiling Point

Composite Score: 81.63

Starring: Stephen Graham, Vinette Robinson, Alice Feetham, Ray Panthaki, Hannah Walters, Malachi Kirby, Izuka Hoyle, Taz Skylar, Lauryn Ajufo, Jason Flemyng, and Lourdes Faberes

Director: Philip Barantini

Writers: Philip Barantini and James Cummings

Genres: Drama, Thriller, Food

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language and some drug use

Box Office: $705,045 worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Boiling Point is Philip Barantini’s one-shot film about the busiest night of the year at a high-end restaurant and the complications that eventually drive the restaurant’s owner and head chef to his “boiling point”. It is hectic and stressful and frustrating in ways that only a film about the restaurant industry can be. Stephen Graham stuns in his role as Andy Jones, the protagonist, playing the part of head chef, business manager, aloof friend, and absentee father all very well. The film’s one-shot cinematography does a great job of playing into the chaos of the evening, never giving the audience a break, just as Andy and his staff are never given a break.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                The frantic nature of this film makes it a challenging watch. For a premise that has very little thriller energy, this was the hardest my heart has beaten while watching a film in quite some time. You feel all of the stress – social, emotional, financial, everything in between – that the characters of the film, and particularly Andy have to go through on this one particular evening in his restaurant. Boiling Point is not the casual, foodie movie that you might otherwise be expecting. Think the first breakdown moment in Jon Favreau’s Chef but played out with no visible cuts in a 92-minute runtime – absolute nightmare for people who suffer from secondhand embarrassment or who empathize very easily with film protagonists.

                One casualty of the film’s hectic pace is its engagement with the issues of real life. It often introduces complexities to the story – like food allergies, corrupt business practices, racism, poor treatment of wait staff, influencer culture, drugs, absentee parents, wage inequality, or health and safety protocols – before pivoting quickly to the next action without resolving the issue or allowing the audience to engage too deeply with it. It is a film that should be watched multiple times to gain a full understanding of all that it is trying to say but that also is difficult to rewatch because of the stresses that have already been mentioned.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                Boiling Point’s stressful energy, while troubling if you are not prepared for it, communicates the frantic nature of the high-end restaurant life very well. It brings you into every aspect of the action, from prepping dressings and sauces to meats to desserts to plating to bar services to wait staff to financing to the toll on personal relationships; it makes the audience a member of the staff for one evening, bringing the full stress of the job along with it. The lack of visible cuts is well done, and there is never a feeling of visual sickness or dizziness, just stress and saturation. It creates a sense of camaraderie between the audience and Andy and his staff, ensuring that once you start watching, you have to finish through to the end.

                Stephen Graham’s portrayal of Andy Jones has to be applauded. He exudes all the anger and passion that we have come to expect from professional chefs (see Gordon Ramsay) without making into something cartoonish. His portrayal always feels genuine. His care for his restaurant comes through in his interactions with the health inspector and with his old mentor Alastair Skye (played skeezily by Jason Flemyng). He displays genuine passion for his employees that, unfortunately, sometimes gets channeled poorly and leads some of them to quit on him. His love for his son, communicated through one-sided phone conversations, clearly shows but also is something to be critiqued, as he missed out on spending time with him to work. It is a performance that fits with the film, harried and stressed, flawed but trying, Graham’s Andy is a modern anti-hero, not trying to save the day, just trying to make it through the stresses of the here and now, which are daunting in size and number.

                Stephen Graham’s skilled performance as Chef Andy and the film’s genuinely stressful one-shot cinematography help the audience see past its lack of major statements about the many issues that dance around its periphery, turning it into a masterful character study that is certainly not one to take up casually. Boiling Point will stick with you long after your first watch and continue to hover in your list of “movies to watch again but I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to deal with all that again”. The discussion to be had about it and its great cinematography make it fit well among the list of Greatest Films of All Time, and if you rent it or check it out on Hoopla, it will be well worth your time.