Genre: Indie/Drama/Horror/Thriller/Sci-Fi
Premise: A server shows up for her Waffle House shift only to find that one of the customers is a threatening scary man with a list of rules for the evening.
About: There’s a lot to unpack here so stick with me. I created this review BEFORE I looked up the details about the script. All I knew is that it was a Black List script and that it was being made by Plan B, Brad Pitt’s company. However, after I read the script and did the research to find out more about the project, I could not find anything regarding this script getting purchased by Plan B. The only indication that Plan B was involved was in the Black List listing. However, I learned that there really is a Waffle House Index. It was created by FEMA and used to gauge disaster severity. If Waffle House closes or serves a limited menu, damage is extreme. So, I guess that was the genesis of the idea. But here’s where I think the Black List got mixed up. Within the real Waffle House Index, there’s a real “Plan B.” Plan B refers to emergency backup response plans activated when conditions overwhelm normal operations. In other words, I think the Black List thought that meant Brad Pitt’s Plan B production house bought this script. Maybe they did. So I’m still not positive. But it was probably a mistake. Anyway, that will provide context when you read this review, which I wrote before I knew any of this.
Writer: Andrew Nunnelly
Details: 105 pages
The Waffle House contains one of the funniest, and also most transformative, memories of my life. Heck, it might have even turned me into an adult.
My college tennis team was traveling through the south playing a bunch of schools. One night, while staying at a motel, we were all starving, as we often were. And there was this Waffle House across the street that stated on its billboard: “All you can eat – $5.99.” I’m not sure even the words “tons of beautiful naked ladies” would’ve had more power over us in that moment. So we scuttled across the highway to engorge ourselves.
Keep in mind it’s almost midnight. And we’re in the middle of nowhere. But we might as well have been walking into Times Square on New Years Eve when we opened the door to this place. I’m talking wall to wall people. We had to wait twenty minutes just to sit down.
Giddy at anticipating my first Waffle House experience, I looked around and noticed something interesting. There was only one waiter for the entire diner. There had to be 200 people in here. The waiter was a big tall black gentleman who somehow looked like he was having a blast in spite of the chaos he’d been thrown into.
Now, because there was only one waiter, we had to wait a long time to order. How long, you ask? You’re probably thinking half an hour, right? No. An hour? Yeah, I wish. Come on, it couldn’t have been more than 90 minutes? We had to wait TWO HOURS just for the waiter to come to us.
Now, the good thing about waiting that long was that we all had TONS OF TIME to look through the endless Waffle House menu. Each of us had carefully memorized our complex orders of eggs and biscuits and toast and burgers, all of which were smothered in various ingredients specific to the Waffle House universe. Dare I say waiting that long made the process of ordering almost euphoric, seeing as we were finally going to eat like kings.
So, when the waiter finally came to us, I found it odd that he didn’t actually have a notepad with him. There were eight of us on the team. How was he going to memorize all our orders?? Maybe this is how The Waffle House worked? The waiters all had ‘A Beautiful Mind’ level brain recollection?
Well, we laboriously began giving him our “all you can eat” orders one by one. Each of us had picked like five things on the menu. And being stupid college students, we’re adding and subtracting certain things from each item (“Oh, and no pickles on the burger…”).
I have to give it to this waiter. He was so patient in the way he listened to every single word – for an order, mind you, that probably took as long for us to say as the length of time we’d been waiting for him to finally get to us.
And after we were finally finished, he looked all of us in the eyes, smiled, and without pretense said, “You got it. 10 waffles.” And walked off.
Now, in this younger version of myself, I had never experienced anything like this. That a place could promise something and just totally lie. The shock of realizing that I would not be eating all I could eat that night for $5.99 was devastating. So I was baffled. I was frozen. I was confused. And then I looked around and I noticed that every single customer in this establishment had a single waffle on their plate.
That’s when I noticed the most shocking detail of all. I had to peer back at an awkward angle to see it but my eyes followed our waiter into the back area where I then watched him begin cooking our waffles. That is correct. This man was the waiter AND THE COOK for the entire restaurant full of 200 people.
For those who don’t understand what the Waffle House legend is about. That sums it up.
Jane is a late 20-something server at a North Carolina Waffle House. We’re told in the description of the screenplay that this will be the worst day of Jane’s life. In fact, she’s already struggling not to cry.
She shows up on her night shift where she says hi to her gay co-server, Tommy. Tommy senses something is off with Jane but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Jane starts her shift where she mostly deals with regulars.
There are two stoner dudes and a stoner girl. There’s an Amazon guy with his young daughter. There’s the town drunk. Oh, and there’s “Scrubs Guy” who has been trying to drum up the courage to ask Jane out forever. Jane already knows he likes her and she might even like him but right now she’s just trying to get through her shift.
Her shift gets considerably more difficult, though, when a dude in a poncho pulls a gun on her and says that he’s got ten rules. The rules are weird. Jane must call herself “the helper.” If the helper doesn’t act normal, everyone dies. Eggs must always be runny. The guy basically threatens to kill everyone if Jane doesn’t do what he says.
But the guy is oddly laid back about the whole thing and when Amazon Guy gets a chance, he pulls out his own weapon and shoots Poncho. In his dying breaths, Poncho tells Jane that there’s a secret magical bunker underneath the freezer in the back and everybody needs to get in there right away because the end of times are coming.
After he dies, a nuclear explosion happens in the far off distance. This is followed by flooding and crocodiles coming up and snatching customers away. Jane, meanwhile, is all up in her feelings as we learn that, earlier that day, her mom died after a long bout with cancer. So Jane is really super depressed about it.
Jane and Scrubs guy work together to stay alive amongst all this madness (spoilers) only for a spaceship to eventually arrive and Scrubs Guy to say he’s some sort of alien and the time has come for Jane to move into the next realm or something. Because she’s special. Will she do it? Do you care? Grab that script to find out!
The script doesn’t work.
I actually spent a long time sitting around and trying to figure out why it didn’t work. After an elongated period of chilling, I finally figured it out. The script is built as this really wild ride. I mean you’ve got mass shooters, the New World Order, people predicting the future, nuclear explosions, secret Waffle House bunkers, mass flooding, giant crocodiles, spaceships.
I actually like all those things. And, if they were built into the right movie, I’d love it.
The problem is that the main character here is written like she’s starring in Manchester By The Sea. Her mom died earlier that day. She can’t stop talking about the cancer and what it did to her. Almost everybody else in the story is super serious and/or depressed as well. Which completely sours all the fun that could’ve come from these wild plot developments.
This is the rare time I would tell a writer: TOO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
How can you possibly have too much character development? THIS IS HOW. When your wacky, fun premise is contrasted against a “For Your Consideration” campaign for the lead character.
The two worlds just never meshed. In fact, they were always at odds. And that’s what I was feeling during each scene but couldn’t put my finger on at the time. Good scenes are supposed to flow. They should feel effortless to the reader. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be conflict or bumps in the road. But they should feel intentional and purposefully constructed. These scenes always felt like they were battling themselves. And the character vs. plot issue is probably why. Maybe there was some other stuff going on too but that was the main reason.
“But Carson: Plan B liked it.”
Correct. So what does that mean? How can we learn from this, because despite me disliking the script, it IS a success story in the script world. A huge production company snatched it up. So, what’s going on there?
My guess is that they liked the character development aspect. Because that’s what they’re known for. They like making intimate character explorations. And maybe they thought, this is the first time we can do that and turn it into something bigger.
But they’re wrong. The movie’s never going to work. How do I know? Because I’m right 99% of the time when I read a script about whether it will turn into a good movie or not. The collision of a deep independent character piece and a wacky invasion movie just aren’t going to come together in holy matrimony. They’re both going to leave each other at the altar.
The only thing that can save this movie is if they embrace how weird and fun it is. I mean, if you’ve got nuclear explosions and crocodiles and aliens and you’re asking me to watch a super serious cry-fest about a mom who died of cancer? You haven’t executed your script properly.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If the tone of your characters is too far away from the tone of your plot, your script will be at odds with itself in every scene.
