Boiling Point (2021) - Philip Barantini’s claustrophobic masterpiece

Credit: allocine.fr

Philip Barantini truly makes cinema an experience and Stephen Graham its victim in his 2021 tour de force Boiling Point, a one-take catastrophe of a head chef and his kitchen at peak stress levels. Portraying a particularly busy night in which everything that could possibly goes wrong does, Barantini’s uncomfortable cinematography and exceptionally talented cast depicts hospitality so accurately that it will leave all workers in the sector feeling either heavily depressed or eerily understood.

Graham is sublime as Andy Jones, the overworked head chef of Jones & Sons in the midst of a divorce and burnout. On a particularly busy night, his restaurant is lowered from a five to three star Health and Safety review, his poor record keeping at fault. And yet Andy is looking for someone to blame, someone to point a finger at, shifting between aggressive tyrant and soft, encouraging boss, who pats backs and says things like “good lad”. His team are on hand, ready for an overbooked evening (some more so than others): no-nonsense partner Carly (Vinette Robinson), quietly boiling sous-chef Freeman (Ray Panthaki), irritating front of house manager Beth (Alice Feetham), attentive waitress Andrea (Lauryn Ajufo). As the evening goes on, problem after problem surfaces as disagreements erupt between the kitchen and front of house, an old friend steals the limelight, and a lack of communication culminates in disaster.

Boiling Point’s one-take transports us into the heat of the action: at a lull in a team member’s evening, we’re swiftly moved away to another’s calamity, jumping back and forth between the back kitchen, where Emily (Hannah Walters) and Billy (Taz Skylar) prepare desserts, to the front kitchen, terrifyingly on view for the entire restaurant to scrutinise, to the tables of various customers, from the aggressive table number seven to Andy’s old friend Alastair Skye (Jason Flemyng), a popular TV chef who has come with a stressful proposition for him. Andy is solicited everywhere, so much so that the act of cooking almost seems like a relief. Matthew Lewis’ cinematography is exceptional, following the jolty walks up and down the restaurant’s floor, Graham’s perpetually flustered expression, the backs and forths of whispered arguments between manager and sous-chef. Achieving a constant feeling of physical sickness throughout that is only softened by a character literally walking outside for a breath of fresh air, Boiling Point is cinema at its most visceral.

Credit: allocine.fr

In the end, what is most claustrophobic, and naturally most engaging, about Boiling Point is human nature and relationships, and the various facades and masks that are put up to hide the core of a personality, an opinion or a kitchen. In one-take, the camera inhabits the lives of all those most important onscreen, truly bringing a new dimension to what “behind-the-scenes” means for the audience and crafting a vulnerability that left me bawling on three separate occasions. Barantini and collaborator James Cummings’ script is so excellent at making the most unlikeable or trivial of characters suddenly so raw that it was almost disappointing not to have a behind-the-scenes for every character: but this is only a positive in disguise. The entire staff of Jones and Sons is so genuine, so fascinating that it is impossible not to want to know everything about them, from what they were doing before the shift, what they’re going to do after, to what toothpaste brand they use. Of course, there are some who are more touching than others: those who truly, deeply care about food and good customer service no doubt have more appeal than those who show up late or spend the evening flirting with their colleagues. And yet all have a quality that makes them understandable and moving.

Such investment with the restaurant’s staff however stops at the customers, who almost become the ‘villains’ of the film. Whether it’s the gaggle of women on a girls night out who playfully grope one of the waiters or the aggressive father at table seven who embarrasses his wife and children when he expresses displeasure in a change of waitress (a quiet depiction of racism, perhaps?), the customers of Boiling Point are truly those who care for little else but themselves. In short, they lack the sympathy developed by the audience who witness the staff’s ordeals. To top it all off, Barantini highlights the extreme lack of communication and respect between the kitchen staff, overworked and overcooked, and the front of house team, the punching bags of unsatisfied customers.

In the end, Boiling Point is really and truly about stressing the trials and tribulations of the hospitality sector. For those who have worked in it, it is either a depressing confirmation of its difficulty or a feeling of being understood that sparks relief. For those who haven’t, it’s a call to treat the waiter better: you never know what they’re going through.