‘There’s a million kids out there that’d die for this opportunity…’
If I’m honest, the concept of a one shot movie (92 incredibly stressful minutes all shot in one take, so in theory, if any actor makes any kind of mistake, then the whole thing needs to be re-shot) inspires only one reaction in me. And that reaction is to scream the word ‘gimmick’. If your film is so unremarkable that it has to fall back on some kind of technical achievement, then perhaps there is no real value to it at all. The challenge is not only to pull off shooting an entire movie in one shot, but also to justify doing it in the first place. What is added by removing cuts from the picture? In the case of Boiling Point, director Philip Barantini has justified this technique and then some. This is giddily virtuoso filmmaking of the highest order…
Boiling Point follows head chef Andy Jones (Stephen Graham) over one hectic night in his newly opened restaurant. Over the course of the evening, Andy must deal with his former mentor (Jason Flemyng) arriving out of the blue, an inexperienced restaurant manager (Alice Feetham) with terrible people skills and Chekhov’s peanut allergy looming large on table 13. Just a normal night in a busy restaurant then.
I’ve never worked in a restaurant, so I don’t know for certain how authentic Boiling Point is, but I certainly recognised a bunch of stuff from my years of working in pubs including rude customers, internal squabbles and a camaraderie that somehow survives despite everything else. What allows this to happen despite, or perhaps because of, the one shot setup is the cast. Graham holds everything together with a typically masterful performance but Flemyng and Feetham are also vital cogs in the machine and Vinette Robinson turns in a top performance as the put upon Carly – seemingly the only competent staff member in the whole building. In truth though, even the minor characters deliver performances that feel human and lived in, particularly Ray Panthaki as the perpetually furious commis chef Freeman.
This is one of those films that is so good that I was genuinely sad when the credits rolled. I could inhabit this world with these characters over another 90 minutes and still not be bored. Barantini, directing from his own script (co-written with James Cummings), ensures that we are given just enough information about each character to leave us wanting more. Indeed, an extra half an hour would have been welcome on this occasion.
So, as ever, I was wrong. Boiling Point is far from a gimmick, instead it uses an incredibly difficult cinematic technique to offer a realistic portrayal of life on the edge. A vital viewing experience.