“Eating Harvard” A feature film treatment by b michael and sady doyle.
CAST
Donald Glover as the kid who eats Harvard
Jessie Eisenberg as the scholarship prep kid and son of evil restauranteur
Bill Murray as the bitter former competitive eater qua mentor
Robert Downey, Jr. As the evil restauranteur
Amy Poehler as the mom
Maebe from Arrested Development as the love interest
Dollhouse Guy [Specifically Enver Gkoajc the very versatile Victor] as Harvard t-shirt getter
Lucille from Arrested Development as the Harvard dean
Method Man and Redman hang out at the restaurant
THE PLOT
The founding fathers of Harvard invented the first tshirt. It had like cross-stitched or sewn onto it an image of a cornucopia. It was lost in time, and it was found somehow by the evil restauranteur. The tshirt is the prize for a competitive eating contest, which is rigged with a ghost pepper, the hottest and deadliest pepper in the entire world. Bill Murray was the closest person to finishing the challenge. By failing he became embittered and saddened. He visits competitive eating contests, not to compete but to look on in sadness.
Meanwhile, Donald Glover is an adopted child from the sticks. His closest friend is his mom, Amy Poehler. He has nothing really going on. Donald works at the evil restauranteur’s restaurant (where Method Man and Redman are his managers, but they’re always smoking weed instead of working). Donald Glover aspires to be a stomach doctor because his dad died from stomach cancer. He worked very hard to get a scholarship to Harvard, and because he’s brilliant he deserved it. BUT, prep kid got the scholarship.
Meanwhile, Lucille is yelling at the dollhouse guy to recover the ancient Harvard tshirt. He makes social media campaign offering a scholarship in return for the tshirt.
Donald Glover sees this other scholarship on facebook, and he recognizes the ancient etching of the tshirt (the only depiction of the original tshirt), and realizes it depicts the same tshirt that he sees everyday at work! He has no choice but to become a competitive eater.
Donald tries one competition and fails miserably. He’s talking to his mom on the phone telling her how he will never win that one eating contest for the Harvard tshirt, and bill Murray—who follows the competitive eating circuit—overhears the conversation and sees his opportunity to get back at the evil restauranteur. He also sees the nobility of Donald Glover’s spirit, and offers — seemingly out of magnanimity — to tutor this kid. Donald Glover, because he is young and naive, offers to let this old loser, formerly a champion, mentor him.
Bill Murray trains Donald Glover for a month. During this time, Amy Poehler, Donald Glover’s always-supportive mother, is shockingly and incongruously not supportive of Donald Glover, and keeps telling him to just give up because he will never win. What Donald Glover does not know is that his Dad did not die of a stomach disease, but from eating a too-hot spicy pepper and dying of the pain. Donald Glover turns to Bill Murray as a new father figure. Donald Glover also becomes close to Maebe from Arrested Development, Bill Murray’s neice, who is so kind and sweet that she is the only member of Bill Murray’s family who still cares about him, due to his sad and bitter nature. But then, Maebe lets it slip that Bill Murray lost the very contest for which Donald Glover is now training, due to the deadly Ghost Pepper, and that he is mentoring Donald Glover out of the desire for revenge rather than kindness. Donald Glover and Bill Murray have a bitter falling out, but they reconcile because they realize they need each other and have a relationship that’s built on more than just competitive eating.
Donald Glover lets Dollhouse Guy know that he will be entering the competitive eating contest at the evil restaraunteur’s restaurant to get back the ancient T-shirt. Dollhouse Guy and Lucille recognize that this is the only way to get the shirt back, and take a plane out to the Idaho restaurant run by Robert Downey Jr. to watch this, their last hope. Donald Glover declares his love for Maebe, and she tells him she will be with him once he wins this contest, because right now his 24/7 competitive eating practice is coming between them. Once he’s won back the t-shirt and restored Bill Murray’s faith in competitive eating, they can really be together. But how could Maebe love Donald Glover if he broke her uncle Bill Murray’s heart AGAIN?
So the contest is on. With everyone in his town, and the Dollhouse Guy, and Lucille, watching them, Donald Glover is eating away, and it is going well, until he gets to the deadly Ghost Pepper. In fact, the prep kid and evil restauranteur’s son, Jesse Eisenberg, has slipped TWO ghost peppers into the mix because he looks down on Donald Glover so much. At the moment that he thinks Donald Glover is going to certainly lose, he laughs aloud about cheating by slipping TWO deadly Ghost Peppers into the mix, and proclaims his superiority. Lucille notices this and gives him a stony look of disapproval. “You’d have to be a man of IRON to overcome TWO Ghost Peppers,” the evil restauranteur Robert Downey Jr exclaims.
But Donald Glover is not only a champion competitive eater in the making, but a future brilliant stomach doctor. He realizes that if he eats rice and chugs all of his milk at the same time, the effect of the deadly Ghost Peppers will be neutralized. He does it! He overcomes the Ghost Peppers! He wins the eating contest, which no-one has EVER DONE BEFORE. Even the stony and hard-assed Lucile, the Harvard dean, pumps her fist and cheers. The T-shirt is won for Harvard. Bill Murray wipes away a single tear — but this time, it is a tear of joy. Dollhouse Guy pats Donald Glover on the back and promises that he will always have a friend in the Harvard administration, and that it will be Dollhouse Guy. Maebe kisses Donald Glover and reveals her secret — she too was studying to become a brilliant heart doctor, and she’s going to Harvard in the fall! “It really is true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” Donald Glover jokes. Then his Mom Amy Poehler gives him a hug and reveals HER secret — that his Dad did not die of stomach cancer, but of eating a too-deadly spicy pepper. They then hug very lovingly. We see Lucille approach Jesse Eisenberg with a glare of hard-assedness in her eye, but this is in the background and we do not really notice it.
CUT to next fall at Harvard. We see Jesse Eisenberg, who we assume is a Harvard student, walking through campus. Donald Glover and Maebe notice him, and give each other resigned shrugs and pass by without a word. We see them walk toward the cafeteria. But when they get there, we go past them, into the kitchen, where Jesse Eisenberg is toiling away over vats of stew, making their food, while Lucille personally supervises him and tells him that since he lost his scholarship, he will just have to earn his way into Harvard.
THE END.