SYNOPSIS:

WALLY PINESORE can fix anything with a power button. As the go-to IT wizard at a fast-growing software startup, Wally spends his days rescuing crashed servers, frozen tablets, glitchy espresso grinders, and panicked coworkers. Unfortunately, the one thing he can’t seem to troubleshoot is his own life. Armed with a smartphone, smartwatch, tablet, laptop, wireless earbuds, and an unhealthy faith that every problem has a technical solution, Wally drifts through life one notification at a time while his very pregnant wife SARAH begs for something increasingly rare: his attention. The warning signs are impossible to miss. Everyone notices them except Wally. He gets kicked out of Lamaze class for secretly streaming a tech podcast. He breaks his arm reaching for a notification during a bike ride. He accidentally leashes the family dog to a moving truck. To Wally, each disaster is merely an unfortunate glitch. To Sarah, they’re evidence that she’s about to raise a child with a man who seems more emotionally available to his devices than his own family. Then comes the baby shower. While friends and family celebrate the upcoming arrival of their daughter, Wally spends the entire event buried in his laptop. After one distraction too many, Sarah reaches her limit. In front of everyone, she drops his phone into a pot of chili and walks out, refusing to raise their child in a house where a smartphone gets more attention than family. For the first time in his life, Wally encounters a problem technology can’t solve. Determined to win Sarah back, he turns to the least qualified relationship expert imaginable: his Hallmark-movie-obsessed coworker BOB. Convinced every romantic problem can be solved with grand gestures and movie magic, Bob sends Wally on a series of increasingly misguided missions. Wally survives a sham digital-detox bootcamp run by a deranged Russian instructor. He commissions a Shakespearean singing telegram. He sends an apology bouquet that arrives with a card that literally dings. Every attempt somehow makes things worse. The harder Wally tries to manufacture the perfect romantic comeback, the further away Sarah seems to drift. Rock bottom arrives when Wally finds himself lost, robbed, and completely adrift. There he meets PAULIE, a homeless man who can’t stop scrolling. What begins as an odd encounter becomes something far more unsettling as Wally sees a distorted reflection of himself, a man so consumed by screens that everything else in life has slipped away. The message finally gets through. Wally stops searching for shortcuts, apps, hacks, and gimmicks. He puts away the grand gestures and begins doing something completely foreign: showing up. He leaves his phone behind. He listens. He pays attention. He becomes present. In a final attempt to repair the damage, Wally prepares a homemade dinner for Sarah. It’s a disaster by almost every culinary standard, but for the first time in a long time, it is real. Through a series of small, heartfelt, screen-free moments, he proves that the man Sarah fell in love with is still there beneath all the devices. One year later, family and friends gather to celebrate their daughter Emma’s first birthday. The room is filled with laughter, conversation, and genuine connection. Wally and Sarah watch their daughter smash cake while everyone remains fully present in the moment. Not a single screen glows. UNPLUGGED is a warm, fast-paced comedy about modern life, human connection, and the technology we love a little too much. A heartfelt satire of our device-obsessed culture, it reminds us that sometimes the most important connection is the one right in front of us.