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This movie needs to come with a warning. Like, a literal health label, a warning informing random audience members that this movie could cause significant health issues, heart attacks, seizures, and should only be watched by individuals with a doctor’s note, and specific supervision. You think this is your buddy Taylor just being funny again? No. Because, right now, having just finished this one, I am running oxygen, have just had an epipen, and you would like to know why it is exactly that I recommended this movie to you all over in the most recent Spotlight write-up? I mean… do I have death wishes for you all? Heck, we should start up an adventure entertainment guide service, you know like an adventure tourism kind of experience? Only join us on the most harrowing movie experiences possible. This cinematic experience put two people in the hospital 2 weeks ago!! Join us! And experience the rapids yourself!!
Good lord aw-mighty. What did I just do? My heart rate still hasn’t come down after that one.
Please don’t continue reading without going, and finding this movie… and watching. Because yeah, I don’t want to be the only person having a heart attack right now. You should also join me. K. Thanks for that.
The reason it’s so intense is A) it’s a single shot movie – it all appears to happen in one single, rocket fueled take. B) It’s filmed in a really high stress restaurant where all the staff, every single one, need an extended vacation. C) Our lead, Andy Jones (played by Stephen Graham) rides several different trains simultaneously… all of them heading straight for the same brick wall. I just can’t express to you how heart attack inducing this movie was. How full-tilt this thing was. And yet, I enjoyed every minute of its high octane burn.
Boiling Point Movie Walkthrough
I hadn’t really seen any of these actors before, besides Stephen Graham – who was in Snatch – but these are all first rate actors. Watching them dance this precarious dance, was just amazing. I’d like to learn more about how long the hidden cuts were. I literally didn’t see a single cut. But it might have been because of the fact that I was always watching through my fingers.
- Stephen Graham as Andy Jones
- Vinette Robinson as Carly
- Alice Feetham as Beth
- Hannah Walters as Emily
- Malachi Kirby as Tony
- Izuka Hoyle as Camille
- Taz Skylar as Billy
- Lauryn Ajufo as Andrea
(Loved Stephen Graham… I mean, as much as you can in this role. But the actor that just dazzled was Vinette Robinson. Want a top spot in my wall of fame, hook me up with an interview! That accent? That acting?!? Glorious.)
Alright, I’m not going to relive this movie by walking you through the entirety of it. My heart won’t handle it. I’d need jumper cables and ER technicians standing at the ready. But I do think we should pay attention to a few specific things that did happen over the course of this movie just so that we can enumerate the details that helped us arrive to its conclusion.
Andy arrives late, to work, and already, things aren’t going well. He’s been booted by his wife, and has missed his son’s birthday. I think? It’s just clear that he hasn’t been there for his family. He’s allowed his work to overtake everything else in his life. Or, so we think at the outset anyway. After walking into the restaurant, Andy is met with the terrible realization that a restaurant inspector is reading his staff a riot act. One staff member was washing her hands in a sink meant specifically for food. Apparently that is very bad. And worse, Andy hasn’t kept his books up to date. What do the logs do? What are they for? Doesn’t matter. All we know is that it’s a pretty important bit o’ detail that he has been shirking over the past few months and this inspector is having literally none of it. And, just like that, the restaurant goes from a 5 Star restaurant down to a 3 Star restaurant.
Now, my own personal experience in the world o’ food is limited to one weekend. Literally. I was like 15? I think? And I bused tables at a Chinese restaurant. I literally could talk for like 2 hours telling you about everything I saw in those 3 days. They had me working 12 hour days, and every time I tried to say, yeah, I don’t think I’m legally allowed to work this many hours they literally pulled cash from the till and were like… but look at all this cash you could make! I remember I liked to wear my dress shirts tucked, but out and baggy? You know what I mean? But that didn’t sit well with the owner. He literally tucked my shirts in for me like three times. Thinking back on it… hrmmm??? Hahahah. I found the politics of the guys doing the dishes and working in the back, back – who all spoke Spanish exclusively – and the people that worked with customers, the waiters, etc., were all English. But all the management and food prep was all done by a large family of Chinese people. I found it all really fascinating, like working at the United Nations. And in just three days I realized there were power clashes and outright arguments around money, the food, heck, really everything. I wasn’t cut out for it. It was a bad job for me. (Only job I ever had that was worse that that? Delivering newspapers. I once screwed up and got too few papers for my route, bought a TON papers from a 7/11 to cover, but the pile were almost 100% old below the top two papers. So I delivered two and three week old papers to 80% of my route. That jobs lasted like two months. The worst.)
Starting the night out with a 2 Star drop, was just the beginning of the chaos. Being the busiest night of the year, Andy has to get on top of his game. But we know something isn’t right with the guy. Can’t be. The lamb he put away last night wasn’t labeled so it was thrown away. They don’t have enough of really anything. ANNNNNDDddd to top it all off? They have a food critic coming in at the last minute. Nothing is going right and we are what, 15 minutes into the movie? I literally had to pause the movie, look away, and take a deep breath. Stress management baby. Core clenching exercises. You know, the standard entertainment drill for not loosing your mind? Yeah, I was having to stay on top of it all.
Regardless, the movie bumps, careens, and collides with everything in its path until it jerkily slams its way into its crazy ending. A customer goes down with some sort of allergy. Wait. Why? They can’t figure it out, everyone is running this way and that. Soon the ambulance arrives, and they are able to hit her with an epipen, and get her taken care of. But it’s clear someone is going to have to take the fall for the screw up. But first, how did it all go wrong? Well, it looks like they were out of one dressing, so Andy told them to swap it out with the second dressing. The second dressing though had nuts in it . (Right, is that what happened?) It was a bone-headed play that Andy shouldn’t have made, and it just sort of logically follows with how everything else has been going the rest of the night. It was Carly who was constantly saving him, over and over again. But it was Carly that the owner wanted Andy to throw under the bus. He refuses to do so though – but when he tells Carly what he’s been asked to do, she tells him that she will have to leave. That she can’t be around him anymore. And heck, other staff call out Andy for his drinking, and his sleeping at the switch, and that all of this chaos on him specifically. Things are spinning completely out of control.
Carly and Andy calm things down, and Andy says he just needs a minute to collect himself. She thinks that’s a good idea, and Andy heads back to his office. And we watch as he pours vodka (?) into his water bottle, that he’d been drinking from all night long now. We see Andy decorating his nose with some nose powder. Then he calls his wife. Immediately his wife is all up in his case. Why? Because at the beginning of the movie, he had promised her that he would call his son before he went to bed. And now it’s way too late for that now. He missed his opportunity to talk with him. Worse… she knows that he is using again. “No, I’m not snorting blow again. I’m not.” hahaha. As he wipes powder from his nose. In spite of his wild protestations to the negative, he promises he’ll go to rehab. That he’ll do whatever he has to do in order to make things right with his wife, his child, and his family. Right?
But, wait just a second. So far tonight, he has managed to alienate himself with his staff as he made terrible decision after terrible decision, all influenced by his alcohol and drug intake. He magically lost two Stars for his restaurant. He almost killed one of his guests with an allergic reaction. Worse, Andy disappointed his son, and his wife. You know? This guy’s life is at an inflection point. Encouragingly, he poured out his vodka and ditched his blow. This might be a very distinct case of way too little, way too late. Right? Months of addiction, surfacing as shoddy records, shoddy life connections, dilapidated work relationships, and all on account of his downward spiraling addictions.
The Ending of Boiling Point Explained
The ending of Boiling Point is a little bit ambiguous. And to those of you that like solid, concrete answers, the ending of Boiling Point might cause you to ask questions like, “what the heck happened at the end of the film Boiling Point??!”
Now, literally, after talking with his wife, realizing what he’d done to the restaurant, and what he could have done to his relationships there, the future is anything but clear. He probably had been doing blow all night long… all the while drinking regularly. That, plus the heavy emotional blow that was the restaurant losing two Stars… etc., etc., etc. all accreted into the shell of a man we have before us. So, as he attempts to pull himself together, and heads back out to the restaurant, he collapsed under the weight of it all. Personally, I believe Andy overdosed. That the alcohol exacerbated the impact of the prolonged drug use, and vice versa, and ultimately the man collapsed.
Is Andy dead at the end of Boiling Point? Great question. How you think the movie end is more of a Rorschach test about you, than about what the writer, and director intended the movie to end. Personally, I say he died when he fell over. That the angst and chaos of it – but mainly his constant drug use and alcoholism – ultimately his body just collapsed. Dead. But, you could also argue that he survived and this was his nadir. This was his turning point… the moment he turned the corner, went to rehab. The moment he changed. The moment he realized he was so close to death. So closed to living a life that was wasted and completely selfish in every way. Which way do you think the ending went? Which are you? The glass half-full type? Or the pessimistic, glass half-empty sort like me?
But if you are one for single take movies – like I am – then maybe you should check out the movie Victoria. It’s personally, my favorite single take movie. And it also is a REAL single take movie.
Edited by: CY