The End of the Tour

The End of the Tour is an intimate snapshot of David Foster Wallace during the last three weeks of the 1996 book tour for his magnum opus Infinite Jest.  During these weeks, Rolling Stone magazine writer David Lipsky tagged along with Wallace for a profile of the acclaimed author that was never published or even finished. When Wallace killed himself in 2008, Lipsky went back to his interview tapes and notes from the road trip to write the memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, which recounts his experiences and conversations with Wallace.

Director James Ponsoldt brings the same understated, “lived in” realism he created for his impressively nuanced pictures The Spectacular Now (2013) and Smashed (2012) to playwright Donald Margulies adaptation of Lipsky’s book. The film’s tenor belongs somewhere between Andre Gregory’s and Wallace Shawn’s spellbinding, slightly precious My Dinner With Andre (1981), and Steve Coogan’s and Rob Brydon’s amusing but ultimately disposable The Trip (2010). The two leads are perfectly cast.  Jason Segel effortlessly embodies the physically awkward, verbally cautious, and emotionally insecure Wallace. Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t need to alter his distinctive performance ticks a smidge to personify Lipsky’s clipped speech pattern, nervy mannerisms, and quick thinking competitiveness.

It’s an odd sensation to watch two hyper-self-aware actors play two even more hyper-self-aware men who try to be laid back and natural in the other’s presence. The dynamic between Wallace and Lipsky is perhaps best described as casually intense or intensely casual. The way they verbally circle each other keeps you on the edge of your seat despite the urge to relax into your chair and ruminate on what they say.  Segel so compelling plays the self-deprecating intellectual—a role quite different from his usual lighthearted fare—that the movie keeps us in its grasp enough to convey its thoughtful existential meditations. The End of the Tour is not a deep exploration into what drove Wallace and made him such a unique thinker, but it does inspire a viewer to go back and read his work—which is the most a film like this can really do.