Adolescence Fans Have To Watch The Director’s Incredible One-Take Movie

“Adolescence,” the chilling Netflix limited series filmed in one-take, is one of the best things to come from the streamer in years. It’s strange to think the platform could simultaneously release something as revelatory as “Adolescence” at the same time it aids the Russo brothers in their crusade to devalue the currency of moviemaking itself with the slick yet empty “The Electric State.” Yet, here we are with one of the best shows ever to hit streaming and arguably one of the very worst films on the same platform.

If you’ve yet to catch the unmissable series, “Adolescence” follows a young boy named Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) who’s arrested for the murder of a classmate. The show also stars the always-brilliant Stephen Graham as Jamie’s dad, Eddie Miller, and Ashley Walters as Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe, the officer in charge of the case. Each of the series’ four episodes are filmed in one take, across which we see Jamie’s distressing journey play out. The four relentlessly gripping installments are not just impossible to look away from, but technical and professional marvels in and of themselves, amounting to four perfectly-crafted plays filmed across multiple locations and sets yet flowing together seamlessly.

This isn’t series director Philip Barantini’s first go-round with one-take projects. In 2021, the Liverpudlian filmmaker directed the criminally underseen “Boiling Point,” which also stars Graham in the lead role and might just be an even more intensely unmissable watch than “Adolescence.” So, if you liked this latest Netflix series and happen to enjoy immersing yourself amid an ambience of unyielding intensity and gnawing doom, you simply can’t afford to miss “Boiling Point.”

The very first episode of “Adolescence” begins moments before Jamie is arrested. It then takes us through the entire ordeal of his actual arrest, which is somehow made all the more harrowing by every mundane detail that we have to sit through while waiting to find out just what the young boy is accused of. Something about the faux-friendliness of the police station staff as they offer Jamie a bowl of Corn Flakes or tell him to “pop” his clothes off, makes the already unbearable gravity of the situation even worse. The first episode of “Adolescence” reminds us that even the most fraught and intense moments of our life can be punctuated by tedious pleasantries. More than that, it reminds us how those pleasantries somehow make everything harder to bear. How we wish in these moments we could afford to be as numbingly congenial as the authority figures processing Jamie’s intake.

It should go without saying that had Philip Barantini chosen not to shoot the series in this way, none of this would be possible. It’s only because we experience everything as it happens in the same timeframe as Jamie and his family that we feel the full weight of their anguish and confusion.

Now, imagine a scenario in which the one-take shooting method was even more effective and the intensity even more excruciating; a scenario in which the take remains unbroken not for a 50-minute episode (which is impressive enough), but for an entire 90-minute feature that’s even more of a thrill ride than “Adolescence.” If that sounds intriguing, “Boiling Point” should be your next watch.

“Boiling Point” is a film based on a very simple premise that makes for one of the most layered and unforgettable cinematic experiences you’re likely to have. Stephen Graham plays Andy Jones, owner and head chef of a new high-end London restaurant who’s gearing up for the business’ opening night. Andy has to lead his team of chefs, direct his front-of-house staff, and entertain his high-profile guests all while dealing with mounting personal problems. The entire opening night is filmed in one take and follows Andy as he bounces between his various responsibilities. But “Boiling Point” also veers briefly into the lives of Andy’s staff and customers, giving us glimpses of their equally-troubled personal experiences and making for a remarkably rich and incisive snapshot of a moment in time.

The name itself, “Boiling Point,” couldn’t be a more apt title for this riveting one-take film, which was incredibly shot four times over two days before the global pandemic forced production to stop. Luckily, Philip Barantini and his cast had nailed the third take, which is what comprises the finished film. It’s impressive enough to watch the “Adolescence” cast run through a whole 50-minute episode without missing lines or struggling with blocking, but an entire film shot in the close-quarters of a busy London kitchen with actors expertly rendering the intense personal drama of their characters in an unbroken take somehow feels even more unbelievable.

Much like the Netflix series that followed it, “Boiling Point” never once feels like you’re watching a fictional story play out. It feels like you’re going through every agonizing setback and personal defeat that arises in both Andy and his staff’s lives, so that by the end you genuinely feel a little breathless. “Adolescence” which is inspired by real-world crimesis similar in that regard, but even its harrowing first episode is arguably not quite as devastating as the relentlessness of “Boiling Point.”

The one-take shot has been a part of filmmaking for decades, but it feels like it gained a little more prominence after season one of “True Detective,” which featured an unforgettable oner in which Matthew McConaughey’s detective Rustin Cohle escaped a besieged housing projects with a captive witness. Suddenly every show and movie includes some sort of unbroken sequence but in recent years the oner has become somewhat of a gimmick, used by a certain type of action movie to try to distract from strikingly flimsy plots. Chris Hemsworth might well have actually been set on fire for the one-take shot in Netflix’s “Extraction 2,” but the result is a kind-of-cool yet forgettable sequence, not the unmissable thrill of an “Adolescence” or “Boiling Point.” What’s more, these movies rely on fake one-take sequences, masking cuts in order to stitch multiple takes together. While there’s not necessarily anything inherently off-putting about such a process, it does raise the question of whether the one-take approach is the right one in the first place, and often makes for some seriously janky and distracting CGI-assisted camera moves.

For Philip Barantini, however, shooting an entire episode or movie in one take is an essential part of the artistic statement. It doesn’t allow you as an audience member to look away, emphasizing the feeling that you’re watching something truly important play out. It’s truly riveting, not in the hyperbolic way that action movies might be described as “riveting.” You actually feel riveted to the spot as these unbelievable unbroken takes unravel.

“Adolescence” accomplishes this in an impressive compendium of one-take episodes, but “Boiling Point” remains one of the best examples, and the perfect synthesis of approach and subject matter. The one-take shot for a high-intensity London kitchen fraught with all manner of personal issue is the perfect marriage of form and function, and while “Adolescence” is arguably a more impressive technical feat in the sense that Bartini and his crew managed to get four one-take episodes in the bag, “Boiling Point” somehow feels like something even more awesome to behold. Hopefully, then, the success of the Netflix series will point more viewers towards what remains an overlooked filmmaking triumph.