Some of the most stressful tasks in the office are ones that most people can’t relate to. Increasingly realistic portrayals of the plight of low-wage, exploited labourers are becoming more common as the genre matures. Most people’s knowledge of what it’s like to work in the food service sector has come from celebrity chefs and television shows like The Food Network. The Bear and Boiling Point, two instructional, adrenaline-packed stories about a ruthless restaurant and its overworked workforce, have been released in the last year. Art in the kitchen is a delicate balancing act that can only be properly appreciated by those who have worked in the business. In FX and Hulu’s new series “The Bear,” the culinary staff’s confined, chaotic environment is brought vividly to life for the audience.
In Jeremy Allen White’s portrayal of the frenetic, wide-eyed Chef Carmen, the show cleverly follows a young genius in the kitchen. After his brother Michael (Jon Bernthal) commits himself and leaves him a bankrupt restaurant called The Original Beef of Chicagoland, Carmy returns home from his career in fine dining. Its 80s movie posters, coin-operated arcade games, and a battered kitchen run by a weary crew yearning for the good ol’ days represent the paradoxes of romanticising nostalgia. Respect for the past is instilled in the kitchen and its personnel, but the team are haunted by the poisonous stink of a tumultuous history.
Character studies disguised as workplace dramas take precedence over Carmy’s own experience as a chef at this particular restaurant, and his accomplishments in that role are overshadowed by his team’s unique personalities. Despite the loss of his brother, Carmy eventually recognises that he can only enhance this restaurant and mourn him if he trusts his staff. Together, they can handle the daily sacrifices of a small company kitchen, from onions to aspirations. An example is Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), an aspirational and cocky sous-chef who becomes a beacon of light for his disillusioned coworkers. Inexperienced pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce), a Somalian immigrant Ebra (Edwin Lee Gibson), and line cook Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas) are the kitchen veterans who look up to the young perfectionists of Carmy and Sydney. They have Gary (Corey Hendrix), a likely ex-Chicago Cubs player who was also formerly homeless, and two dishwashers who are rarely seen: Manny (Richard Esteras) and Angel (Jose M. Cervantes). Matty Matheson (aka Fak) is another option who may or may not have an answer to your dilemma.
Richie, on the other hand, is the best example of why The Bear exists (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Richie is the embodiment of the restaurant’s alternating beauty and turmoil. The show’s central theme is the growth of his character. It’s important to address our feelings of loss in order to move on. But Richie is a stand-in for this tension, someone who is unable to let go of the past because he thinks that he will be forgotten along with it. He’s at the heart of many of the restaurant’s problems, whether it’s his incessant nagging of Carmy and Sydney or his concerns about keeping up with the restaurant’s older audience in a rapidly changing Chicago. In spite of Richie’s own reflections on many of these issues, his frantic emotional cycle eventually upsets the team and their tale more than any debt or deadline.
However, Richie must continue to let go of the past and look forward to what the future holds as he gives Carmy the final letter from his brother Mikey that ultimately saves the restaurant and his “cousin”. While the Bear’s kitchen may be the focus of the story, it’s the characters and the environment they create that give the story its deeper implications and a sense of optimism. The programme does, however, err on the side of romanticising and exalting the ties formed in the kitchen and the willingness of the typical employee to collaborate and be inspired. Episode 7’s 20-minute one-shot perfectly portrays an honest, explosive kitchen experience that can be found simultaneously at an Applebee’s and a three-star Michelin restaurant on a busy Friday night.
Despite Episode 7’s remarkable immersion experience, the 2021 British film Boiling Point, a life-altering and visceral 90-minute one-shot depict a more universal restaurant experience than anything in The Bear. Boiling Point is a life-changing and visceral one-shot. Everything in a capitalist market has the contradiction that one person’s happiness is another’s sorrow. It’s possible that your favourite restaurant and cuisine were invented by someone who was in a state of personal torment. Ballantine’s feature debut, Boiling Point, has been nominated for BIFA and BAFTA awards for writing and directing. It captures this horror and offers an awful picture that shows everything wrong with how food industry workers are exploited in a ride that induces nightmares. Andy (Stephen Graham), a dishevelled junkie, is like Carmy, who internalises everything he experiences. Chef Carly (Vinette Robinson), Andy’s right-hand woman, fights to keep their restaurant open on one of the darkest nights of Andy’s life when it comes under siege by hordes of hungry individuals who aren’t simply searching for a meal. Here, Robinson provides one of the best supporting performances in recent memory.
This restaurant has it all: power-hungry and patronising health inspectors; bigoted and hyper-masculine patriarchs seeking validation; fake social media influencers seeking support from the restaurant; dishonest food reviewers; an incompetent manager hired through nepotism; and even a celebrity chef demanding Andy pay him back £200,000. On a Friday night before Christmas, the stress of an overbooked restaurant is on full show, and it might cost these workers their lives. You don’t have a moment to pause, just like the workers. As you get to know the restaurant workers, it becomes evident early on that this particular night is meant to represent the worst of the food business. This is particularly amazing given the film’s 90-minute running time.
While characters like Richie in The Bear bear the brunt of the show’s volatility, the whole workforce in Boiling Point bears the burden of the establishment’s unpredictability. Finally, the employees in The Bear and Boiling Point have had many awful nights that you’ll never see on TV, and tonight is no exception. This is why the two stories are so amazing. Boiling Point does more in 90 minutes than The Bear did in its exploration of the ways in which the food business exploits and degrades its people (and may do so in the future if the series is renewed). In the two stories, exploitation in high-stress, demanding work is depicted as a reality, and they give an honest look at a common problem.