Spoilers for The Menu

I thoroughly enjoyed the feature film The Menu. Recently I discovered that there was a rumored to be a deleted scene where the critic Lillian Bloom is waterboarded with the broken emulsion she clocked during the breadless bread course. I couldn’t quite work out where in the film such a scene would fit, and I searched out the script online.

It was easily located and a very good read. (For screenwriters it is always wise to remember that a script must first be a good read before it can become a good movie.) Rather than search out the waterboarding scene I simply enjoyed the script from front to back.

I would hazard to guess that 90 percent of the script is up there on the screen. There are minor tweaks here and there, a few lines cut short in the final edit and a couple of beats dropped. I do miss that there are a couple moments that would have clued the audience in faster on Margot’s and Tyler’s relationship. In particular there’s a bit where Tyle is concerned that Chef is mad and won’t like him and Margot points out that Tyler is paying for Chef to serve him, and it doesn’t matter if Chef likes Tyler or not. There’s a beat where it’s clear Tyler then puts together two and two and wonders just how much Margot likes him since ‘ding dong’ he’s paying her to be there.

The waterboarding scene took place in the third act while Margot had been dispatched to retrieve the large barrel. During her absence Lillian is tortured with the broken emulsion and the nameless famous actor player by John Leguizamo is force fed nuts by his assistant Felicity, coerced by the staff, activating his allergy.

Frankly, I agree with this sequence being cut from the final film. First and foremost, it’s a level of barbaric cruelty that feels at odd the cultured cruelty Chef Slowik engrained for the rest of the evening. Thematically it doesn’t fit. Secondly it violates the film’s point of view. The entire film we are with Margot as she experiences the horrors of the strange sadistic diner. To witness the explicit torture required violating that POV on a very serious level.

Reading the script is a wonderful exercise in understanding the necessity of editing. Ideas that felt so right and proper when written have a very different feel when filmed or show or even read in context in the final draft.

Reading the script enhanced my appreciation of the film and the talented people behind it.