After spending 5 days on the road with David Foster Wallace at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest journalist David Lipsky was never able to publish the Rolling Stone piece he was supposed to be writing.
Unfortunately the film The End of the Tour never exactly answers why the article was never published (a title card in the end credits would have been nice) however that omitted fact does not in the least take away from the pure pleasure that it is to watch The End of the Tour.
Luckily Liplsky later turned his travels with Wallce into a 300 page memoir entitled Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself and later Pulitzer prize winner Donald Margulies did an amazing adaptation of it into a script.
As coincidence would have it, director James Ponsoldt was a former playwriting student of Marguilies at Yale, and the professor reached out to Ponsoldt to see if he’d be interested in directing the film (Set up by Anonymous Content) not even knowing that Ponsoldt was a lifelong David Foster Wallace fan.
The resulting film’s simple structure begins with Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) finding out Wallace committed suicide and then flashes back to their trip together. It’s a fascinating character study of the dynamic that can be formed between journalist and subject. Trust, fear of betrayal, guarded answers and honest intimate moments all wrap neatly into this dialogue heavy flick.
To its credit, the film never feels like a play or “too talky,” which is a triumph because the audience literally can’t wait until all the secondary characters get out of frame so that our protagonists can continue onto one of their amazing conversations.
It evokes the feeling of hanging out on screen which is no easy task because of the narrative responsibility that most films need to subject themselves to. Yet here those shackles are broken, in which the entire meat of the film is found in the act of hanging out with one of the more brilliant authors of recent American literature.
Jason Segel delivers an incredibly honest and captivating performance that captures the spirit of Wallace, not just as a genius, but as a regular person as well. The performance and the script both reinforce the myth of the troubled genius author along with breaking down said myth to show him as just a regular tobacco chewing dog lover as well.
For a film with no real antagonist, tension is built as Lipsky himself knows that eventually he has to become the antagonist since tough questions must be asked per his editor’s wishes. This creates a unease as both we and Lipsky dread the moment when the rumor of drug addiction must be asked to the man who he just spent days shadowing and had finally gained his trust.
Margulies’ script coupled with Ponsoldt’s directing and point on performances by Eisenberg & Segel make this truly a must-see show at Sundance. Distributor A24 bought the film and will release sometime later in 2015 – and this one is worth keeping on your radar.
Sadly (to my knowledge )the film is not eligible for awards, like the Waldo Salt Award for Screenwriting or the Jury Prize, since it was categorized in the Premiere section – which is a mystery and a bummer.
For those at the fest, standing in long lines (hopefully even to see a new viewing of The End of the Tour) it seems quite appropriate to humbly suggest you download Infinte Jest onto your phone or tablet and let Wallace’s creative spirit help you pass the time away and maybe even inspire you to do something creative on your own.
–Jeff Goldsmith is the publisher of Backstory on the iPad and the host of The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith podcast in iTunes. Follow him on Twitter as @yogoldsmith
Here’s what the Sundance Guide Had to Say:
In 1996, shortly after the publication of his groundbreaking novel Infinite Jest, acclaimed author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) sets off on a five-day interview with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg). As the days pass, a tenuous yet significant relationship develops between journalist and subject. Lipsky and Wallace bob and weave around each other, revealing as much in what they don’t say as what the say. They share laughs, expose hidden frailties, yet it’s never clear when or to what extent they are being truthful. The interview is never published. Five days of audio tapes are packed away in Lipsky’s closet, and the two men never meet again.
The End of the Tour is based on Lipsky’s critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter that he wrote following Wallace’s suicide in 2008.
Deeply emotional, insightful performances from Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg lay bare a heartbreaking screenplay by Pulitzer-Prize winner Donald Margulies. Directed with humor and tenderness by Sundance Film Festival veteran James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, Smashed) and befitting the troubled soul of Wallace himself, The End of the Tour is profound, surprising, and compellingly human. —D.C
Director: James Ponsoldt
Screenwriter: Donald Margulies