A film consisting primarily of two writers talking to each other turns out to be The End of the Tour’s strength rather than its weakness. David Foster Wallace (an excellent Jason Segal) at one point says to Rolling Stone magazine profiler David Lipsky (Jesse Eiesenberg), “David, this is nice. This is not real.” As close as this film seems to come to capturing an authentic dialogue, we, of course, can’t be totally sure the film is real either. A book of these interviews may exist for referencing, but with Wallace’s demise, the best source for the accuracy of his portrayal isn’t talking. Given these limitations, The End of the Tour not only works, it’s positively enthralling.
Director James Ponsoldt (the very good The Spectacular Now), himself a former entertainment reporter, brings to life on-the-mark details of a reporter’s mindset and tactics. Lipsky (Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace) presses his skeptical Rolling Stone editor to allow him to tag along at the end of Wallace’s 1996 book tour on behalf of his 1,000-plus-pages opus, The Infinite Jest. “We’ve never had a writer on the cover of the magazine,” Lipsky says. Wallace teaches at Illinois State in Bloomington and Lipsky arrives at Wallace’s house ready for what could be a hard time in getting the reclusive author to reveal himself.
What follows is a sharply-etched exposition on the tensions between fame and privacy. The many dangers of media over-worship and over-scrutinization are dealt with using laser-sharp precision. The two writers spar constantly, often reaching an equilibrium before stumbling on a seemingly insurmountable impasse. Wallace, who would commit suicide twelve years later, is often eloquent, never tedious, a regular guy who is anything but regular.
Lipsky, himself a flailing novelist, skitters back and forth between firm journalistic professionalism and a more personal need for acknowledgment from Wallace. A scene where Pinsky recoils with jealousy toward his girlfriend back home after she shares a long fan phone conversation with Wallace sums up his own ambivalence. Considering the men share a mere five days together, however, it’s a testament to Lipsky that the two men come to share a bond that appears strong, even bordering on friendship. Such feelings can be distracting and misleading, however, when it comes to achieving a proper interviewing distance.
Segal rises above the ranks of a solid comedic actor into the far rarer terrain of an insightful, sensitive dramatic one. In an outstanding performance, he nails the many demons lurking inside Wallace’s fragile psyche, while expressing Wallace’s strong sense of humor and uncanny ability to talk as well as he writes. Lipsky’s book was published in 2010 after Wallace’s death, and strangely, the interviews never appeared in Rolling Stone. Go figure. The basis for one of the best films of 2015 didn’t cut it in the viewpoint of editors from what used to be a leading counter-cultural periodical.