I’ve finally caught up with this much-lauded 2021 film starring Stephen Graham, and really wasn’t taken with it. It is a film set in a restaurant during a pre-Christmas rush, and is seemingly filmed in a single continuous take. As the name implies, it follows Graham’s character as the stress and tension slowly build to, well, boiling point.

I felt that there was far too much foreshadowing through the film, to the point where it became predictable. The responses to events in the film didn’t strike me as especially authentic, with minor inconveniences sometimes seeming to cause a larger response than major events. And I wasn’t convinced by the filming method either: there were ponderous scenes outside the main setting, which felt like they were inserted solely to give the main actors a break. I did not get the sense of a convincing continuity of action at times when the camera was elsewhere.

So, unfortunately, this didn’t do it for me. If, for some godforsaken reason, you are desperate to see a film set in a restaurant, The Menu—admittedly a very different type of film—knocks the socks (or perhaps the chef’s hat) off this one.

Boiling Point is available to stream on Netflix.