This film wowed critics as a real-time look into how an upmarket restaurant in London works behind the scenes in one long, continuous shot. Despite its modest scope, the film impressed enough people that it’s already been made into a full series. I loved all of the details and how each character, including the customers of the restaurants, all have their own little stories. But I do note that the way it ramps all of the restaurant’s myriad problems into an explosive climax kind of makes it feel like a reality show. It’s just so dense with drama and it makes a lot of sense why this might better be expanded into a television series.

Andy Jones is the harried head chef of a new but flourishing fancy restaurant. He arrives late at work to be confronted by an inspector who tells him that the restaurant’s health and safety rating has been downgraded, largely because he himself has been remiss in keeping the paperwork up to date. The maître d’ Beth, who is also the daughter of restaurant’s owner, holds a quick meeting to tell the staff that they are overbooked, a customer is planning a marriage proposal that evening and that they will be having celebrity chef Alastair Skye and a famous food critic as guests. Jones is dismayed as he has previously worked under Skye and tries unsuccessfully to duck out of work. As the restaurant opens for the evening, more and more problems crop up. The soon-to-be married couple reminds Beth that the woman has a nut allergy and this creates tension with already stressed sous chef Carly as Beth neglects to enter this into their computer system; a trio of guests claim that they are influencers and want some simple steak and fries yet that isn’t on their menu and Beth tries to accommodate them anyway; Jones personally attends to Skye and his food critic and there is plenty of unresolved tension between the chefs. Meanwhile Jones is on the phone on and off, trying to deal with his family issues and drinking heavily from a personal bottle.

This film excels at capturing the hectic struggle of running a busy restaurant and this being a single, continuous take immerses you fully in the action. It cheats of course as the camera only follows characters when something unusual is going to happen to them thus reinforcing the impression that something is always happening. I’m also sure that it’s not a totally accurate portrayal of what goes on inside a restaurant. Nevertheless, not being much a food person, this is a good enough portrayal of the various roles and responsibilities and the workflow between them that I found it fascinating and illuminating. That it takes place within a specifically British context is even better. All members of the staff know how seriously to take the concerns of the inspector, the cold chef of French origin has some difficulties with the English language, the restaurant has to deal with a table of Americans and so on. Every character has some little story of their own going on, from small things like the waitress being late because she secretly went earlier to an audition to more somber bits like the pastry chef’s realization that her assistant isn’t rolling up his sleeves to hide evidence of self-cutting on his forearms.

As I noted, there are really too many little stories going on at the same time that it detracts from the seriousness of the film. Furthermore I found the main drama of Jones’ personal troubles to be too obvious and not directly relevant to the restaurant industry. It’s easy to guess that he’s an alcoholic and the other problems that the restaurant is having all really stems from him not being on the ball. I ended up being much more interested in what’s going on with the other characters than Jones himself. I also dislike the artificiality of everything conspiring to be the one worst day for him from missing an event with his son though he should have known he would be at work in advance, to the meeting with the inspector, having his former boss pop in and so on. Some films do manage to build the scenario of multiple compounding problems in a natural manner but I fear that this film’s relatively short running time and its format makes it feel like a manufactured reality show instead.

There’s no denying how engrossing this is in the heat of the moment and I’d bet everyone has some curiosity about how a top restaurant is run behind the scenes. Yet I fear that the film on its own doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny and consideration and feels like a proof of concept for a longer series.