“I think if we made it now, we’d have included more about the staffing issue,” he admits. “It would have been even more stressful, even more intense for our characters, they would have had less staff, less suppliers. But it was like that pre-pandemic in certain places as well. The real Andy found it difficult to find chefs, even before covid. It’s an incredibly in-demand industry and everyone is hiring. Actually, you see in the movie, Malachi Kirby’s character, Tony, mentions that he’s not supposed to be in that section, that’s because we couldn’t fit another actor in the kitchen while filming, but we put that into the script as a nod to the staffing issue. It made it feel more real.” 

What stands out about Boiling Point is the amount of work and effort that goes into serving food – which even frequent restaurant-goers might not be aware of. 

“For people who haven’t worked in hospitality, you just turn up and you’re served your lovely meal and you don’t have to think about anything,” says Barantini. “After seeing this, I hope people can go into a restaurant and have a bit more empathy towards the staff and appreciate the hard work that goes into creating that meal.” 

“We’ve all seen the iceberg diagram with all the hard work hidden beneath the surface and just the little tip sticking out of the top,” continues Jones. “That’s what it’s like in hospitality. Everyone is stressed. Everyone is on the verge of leaving the industry, it feels like. It’s so easy to lose sight of how much work is going into it. Just be nice, just have a touch more understanding.”

And while Jones is confident that Boiling Point could very well help reappraise the relationship between hospitality and customers, Barantini says he’s already received the best review he could possibly get. 

“I had an email not so long ago from someone who watched the original short that the feature sprang from and he said to me ‘I work in a restaurant and I handed my notice in today, because [a certain character] is basically me, I’ve just had a newborn baby and I don’t want to share that fate, so I’m going to get a new job and change my lifestyle’,” beams the director. “Look, I’ve had my issues, I’ve struggled, I’ve been sober for six years now and that changed my life. I was in a dark hole when I was in hospitality and I’d seen one colleague of mine collapsed on the floor having suffered a stroke in his early-thirties. That will happen if we don’t look after our hospitality workers. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to make this film.”  

Boiling Point will be released in UK cinemas and on-demand on 7 January 2022.