Boiling Point is a 2021 British drama film directed by Philip Barantini. It was also written by him, and James Cummings.
A one-take film set in Jones & Sons, an up-market restaurant in London, the POV character is head chef Andy Jones (Stephen Graham). He has recently gone through a divorce and, coupled with the stress and pressure involved with his job, he's taken to drinking and snorting cocaine at work. The restaurant is suffering, having been downgraded from a five to three stars rating in a Health & Safety review at the start of the film. Things go From Bad to Worse in the course of one evening.
Boiling Point was previously a 2019 Short Film, done in the same one-take style. Its success and critical acclaim led to an expanded feature length version. Jason Flemyng also stars.
A four-part sequel TV series followed in 2023 for the BBC, with most of the original cast returning.
Not to be confused with the 1990 Japanese film. Or the 1999 series about Gordon Ramsay.
Tropes:
- Addled Addict: Andy's alcohol and cocaine consumption lead to the downfall of his marriage, and the combination of the addiction and stress has led to his restaurant going down the drain.
- The Alcoholic: Andy takes a swig from a sports bottle filled with booze every few minutes, and he's shown to keep a few bottles in his office.
- Angry Chef: Deconstructed. The stress and pressure of a restaurant is shown in great detail, and anyone who's angry usually has a good reason to be.
- Artistic License – Medicine:
- Walnut allergies are caused by the proteins in walnuts, not the oil. While there is still a risk of a reaction, a person with a tree nut allergy would probably not suffer as severe a reaction to walnut oil as if they had just eaten raw walnuts.
- The ambulance workers that arrive at the restaurant use an oxygen mask that has a reservoir bag with the bag completely deflated, which negates the function of the mask.
- Bad Boss: Downplayed. Andy is clearly dealing with a lot of strain and occasionally yells at his staff, but he usually apologizes shortly thereafter and accepts blame. He also displays some genuine mentorship as well.
- Bad Influencer: An Instagram influencer and his entourage make nuisances of themselves throughout the evening by ordering off the menu, leching over Beth, intruding on Alistaur and Andy's conversation, and filming one of the other patrons having an allergic reaction.
- Berserk Button: Freeman flips out when Beth tries to insinuate that he undercooked his food. It appears he didn't, and the guest didn't understand that lamb is supposed to be cooked that way.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Dean the Scottish waiter briefly imitates an American accent when dealing with a party of American women, who find his pronunciation of "whiskey sour" as "whiskey sewer" to be funny. He switches to the American pronunciation when repeating the term.
- Camp Gay: Dean, the waiter who also DJ's at a local gay bar after hours.
- Chekhov's Gun: We're informed early on that the woman at Table 13 has a nut allergy, and Carly lectures Andrea on making sure it's properly recorded on the system. A mistake on Andy's part leads to the woman being served garnish containing walnut oil.
- Compassionate Critic: Alastair has a critic dining with him, Sara Southworth. In contrast to his nitpicking, Sara loves the food and is clearly very open-minded.
- Daddy's Girl: Judging by her tearful voicemail to her father, Beth is quite close to him.
- Damned by Faint Praise: Alistair compliments Andy's food with measured praise, saying it's "98%" or just millimeters from being great. When Sara describes the food as "simple," Alistair immediately latches onto it as a criticism.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Subverted! A female customer slaps Dean on the ass while he's walking away; he shrugs it off with a joke to their faces, but when he walks away he looks genuinely upset and uncomfortable.
- Downer Ending: A woman nearly dies from having her nut allergy accidentally triggered. Camille is the one who gave her the food and is in tears, Freeman gets into a fight with Andy over it, and Carly quits then and there. To cap it off, Andy collapses outside his office and the film ends before his fate is confirmed. He's also £200,000 in debt to Alastair, who in turn has suffered losses and needs to be paid back immediately.
- Establishing Character Moment: Andy's is arriving late while a health inspector is giving his restaurant a review.
- Everybody Loves Blondes: Robyn is a bubbly blonde who uses her beauty as an advantage to charm customers. Unsurprisingly, she's also an actress.
- Feigning Intelligence: The racist customer at table 7 puts on the airs of a culinary snob; despite not actually knowing what any of the wines on the menu were and just ordering the most expensive one, he aggressively snaps at Andrea for serving it before "letting it breathe". Later, he returns his lamb to the kitchen claiming that it's undercooked, and when it's pointed out to him that perfectly-cooked lamb is supposed to be pink, he claims that he already knew that and awkwardly stammers a comment about Andrea's manners.
- Girl Friday: Carly the sous chef is the dilligent worker picking up the slack to compensate for Andy's frequent mistakes.
- Hate Sink: In contrast to the majority of employees who are shown with Hidden Depths or humanizing moments, we have...
- A rude patriarchal figure who controls what everyone else orders and displays obvious racism towards Andrea.
- Jamie is a lazy worker who shows up two hours late, slacks off to smoke, and appears to buy drugs.
- Alastair Skye is a pompous television chef who shows up to be passive aggressive to Andy, and even tries to make him fire the innocent Carly just as a scapegoat for the nut allergy.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Andy tearfully confesses to his ex-wife that he'll go to rehab, and he pours his booze away and gets rid of his cocaine. Seconds later, he collapses outside his office, possibly fatally.
- Innocently Insensitive: Beth isn't trying to be malicious when she asks the chefs to make three steaks that aren't on the menu for a trio of social media influencers; she's just clueless as to how much pressure they're under.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Alastair is arguably in the right when he reminds Andy that he borrowed a substantial sum of money from him, and hasn't returned his calls in six weeks.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Alistair spends the movie trying to argue that Andy's food is mediocre compared to his own, but the well-respected food critic he's with disagrees. When he makes an alteration to a dish, claiming it will perfect the flavor, the camera leaves before we find out the critic's ruling. We also learn later that Alistair's own restaurants are floundering, putting him in financial straits.
- Language Barrier: Camille is a French woman and struggles to understand Andy's thick Scouse accent.
- Lethal Eatery: Downplayed, but the first two minutes have a health inspector lowering the restaurant's five star rating to a three because of how the standards have slipped.
- Mirror Character: Andy and Sara Southworth are both in the same industry, him as a chef and her as a critic. Both are divorced, with strained relationships with their children. And of course both are 'friends' with Alastair.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Camille falls to pieces when she realises she was the one who contaminated Mary's plate.
- Named by the Adaptation: The protagonist and manager in the original short weren't named, but are given the names Andy and Beth.
- Nice Girl: Andrea is kind and friendly to everyone, even managing to stay polite when dealing with a racist customer.
- One Crazy Night: as the film was shot in one long take, it also takes place over the course of ninety minutes on an eventful night.
- The Oner: The film is shot in one take, being the third out of four runs the cast completed.
- One-Steve Limit: The main character is Andy and there's also a waitress called Andrea. The original short notably didn't have this, as the head chef wasn't named, and he was only named Andy as a last minute nod to Philip Barantini's friend. It's presumably because of this trope that Andrea is never nicknamed 'Andie'.
- Oop North: Although set in London, the majority of restaurant employees are northerners. The original short was filmed in Manchester, but the feature had to be relocated to London to show the entire restaurant (the short was filmed in a training kitchen).
- Parents as People: Both Andy and Sara Southworth get a moment of understanding where the latter mentions feeling guilty for being away from her children to work. As a father himself, he sympathises.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Alistair spends most of the film negging on Andy's food, implying that his recipes are knock-offs of Alistair's own creations and saying they're almost great. It turns out that Alistair is in debt and is trying to break Andy's confidence to try and get his protegee to ask him to join the operation in exchange for a cut of the profits.
- Perilous Marriage Proposal: One of the restaurant patrons is planning on proposing to his girlfriend and notifies the staff. When bringing out the food (where the ring is supposed to be hidden), a mistake in the kitchen means that there are nuts on the plate. She has a Plot Allergy and she's taken away in an ambulance, with the possibility that she might die, before he's even had a chance to propose properly.
- Pet the Dog:
- Andy at one point is very encouraging to young Jamie, giving him positive feedback on his dessert.
- Though Alistair has spent the evening criticizing and undermining Andy, when some obnoxious influencers try to order sparkling water from Andy, Alistair immediately jumps to his defense, saying, "He's the head chef, mate. Ask one one of the girls. "
- Plot Allergy: A Drama Bomb occurs when a diner with a nut allergy is accidentally served food that had been garnished with walnut oil.
- Rage Breaking Point: Freeman has had enough once everyone downplays the fact that a woman nearly died thanks to Andy's mismanagement, and they get into a brief fight in the kitchen.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Carly eventually has enough of Beth's condescending attitude and constant micromanagement; letting her have it right there on the floor, telling her how bad an employee she is.
- Freeman calls Andy on his behaviour after learning that his carelessness led to a customer getting a near fatal allergic reaction.
- Rewatch Bonus:
- Andy is annoyed at Beth for not telling him Alastair would be there tonight, insisting he needed time to prepare. She's understandably confused, saying they need to be prepared every night, and the viewer assumes Andy has nerves because Alastair is a celebrity. On the second watch, you realise it's because he's in debt to him.
- After Alistair argues with Sara about how Andy's food isn't quite great, he then confidently states, "But it will be." This seems like a moment of actual respect for Andy's abilities, but then we learn that Alistair plans to get into business with Andy, so he thinks the food will only get good after he's involved.
- Satellite Love Interest: Frank the waiter/bartender is always seen flirting with Robyn in their spare moments. We know a little more about her than him, since she's an aspiring actress.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Carly ultimately quits working for Andy, fed up of cleaning up his messes.
- Self-Harm: Jamie, the youngest boy in the kitchen, is reprimanded for not rolling his sleeves up. When he does, it reveals that he's been cutting himself.
- The Slacker: Jake, the dishwasher who just spends his time watching football on his phone, and even sneaks out to buy drugs.
- Stepford Smiler:
- Beth has to put on a smile and play hostess after being reduced to tears by Carly.
- Andrea likewise has to remain polite even when a customer is rude to her.
- After having his accent teased and ass slapped, Dean starts insisting "I love my job, I love my job".
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Alastair insists Andy has to fire Carly to take the fall for Mary's allergic reaction. He's unwilling to because it wasn't her fault, and even tells her he wouldn't do it. But this is the last straw for her, and she quits.
- Technician Versus Performer: Present in a discussion between Alastair Skye and Sara Southworth. The former nitpicks over presentation and other technical issues, while the latter says she goes on instinct and feeling to decide whether she enjoys something.
- Took a Level in Kindness: After being chewed out by Carly and being told no one likes her, Beth makes an attempt to be nicer; inviting both Andrea and Carly herself for drinks at some point. She's also trying to reassure Camille after the latter realises she caused the allergic reaction.
- "Ugly American" Stereotype: A party of American women can't understand Dean's Scottish accent, and one of them gropes him thinking she's being funny.
- Waiting for a Break: Robyn, one of the waitresses, arrives late because she's just been at an audition. Some lines of dialogue imply Andrea is an actress too.
- Wham Line: Alastair drops The Reveal about halfway through that Andy borrowed £200,000 from him.
