The End of the Tour
To say that David Foster Wallace is a hard man to craft a biopic about is a massive understatement. His death is still a recent event – not even a decade past, and with a posthumous (and unfinished) novel published in the last five years. It’s a wound that is very much still raw, and with anything so recent you run the risk of not just being inaccurate, but also insensitive to those that remain behind. The End of the Tour, as you’d imagine, has had its fair share of trouble with that – the Wallace Trust has adamantly disavowed it, and several notable writers who counted themselves among Wallace’s friends have vocally objected, both to the film in its entirety and to Jason Segel’s portrayal of the late writer. They say it’s not true to him, that the facts are wrong, but moreover, they say that Wallace, on a fundamental level, would have objected to this aggrandizement – that he would be profoundly uncomfortable with being seen as someone worthy of this adulation.
At the same time, one of Wallace’s most incredible gifts as a writer was his ability to deeply imbed his personality into his work – to make you feel like you knew him, just by reading him. This, combined with his near-canonization in the last two decades, has created a following that borders on the fanatic. Moreover, these fans feel as though they know Wallace personally, know how he thought and the way he saw the world. I count myself among Wallace’s fans, and I can understand where that impulse comes from – he comes across in all his writing like the best friend you never had. Caring, sweet, profoundly normal, with a good sense of humor and a way with words. It shocked me, the first time I read him, just because it felt like finally finding someone who felt how I felt, who saw things the way I see things.
It goes without saying that it’s dangerous to assume you know someone without ever having met them, and it goes even further that none of Wallace’s fans, no matter how dedicated, can speak his mind. In the past few days I’ve been thinking about the sense of entitlement that comes with fandom, that odd feeling of ownership that comes with true dedication to something. Make no mistake, it’s an illusion, and it is foolish for me, or for anyone, to comment on how Wallace would have felt about The End of the Tour.
Solely speaking as a great fan of David Foster Wallace, then, and as someone who literally named this blog after a concept he talks about in this very film, it will come as no surprise that I loved this The End of the Tour. Jesse Eisenberg is great as David Lipsky, giving a performance he’s quickly becoming known for – the guy who assumes he’s the smartest person in the room, and more often than not is. In this case, however, it’s a much quieter intelligence than we saw in films like The Social Network and Now You See Me. Moreover, in this case he’s also wrong. That role is taken up, reluctantly, by David Foster Wallace, who Jason Segel portrays exactly as I’ve always imagined him. The cadence, the physicality, the quiet sense of humor and sadness all sort of muddled together and run through a brain that is at once fascinated and horrified by the world around him.
They’re both backed up by a phenomenal script from Donald Marguiles and excellent direction via James Ponsoldt, which is a huge boon – the film is essentially an extended conversation, one that seems more at home on a stage than on the screen of a movie theater. And unlike the work of, say, Aaron Sorkin, Marguiles’ script is neither bombastic nor witty – there’s no charmingly glib characters or dramatic courtroom confrontations. It all runs at a slightly lower speed, and is a better film for it. Like Wallace itself, The End of the Tour feels natural, charming and perhaps a bit home-y. It’s no coincidence that it’s framed by Lipsky listening to his old tapes, which he pulls out when he hears the news of Wallace’s death. The entire movie is covered in a gentle haze of nostalgia, and a study in soft light and focus, captured almost in the style of a home movie. It is more, than anything else, a story of fond reminiscence.
And therein lies the trick, I think, to reconciling the fans that loved the film and those who knew him personally and see it as a great disservice. As I said above, Segel portrays Wallace as I’ve always imagined him, but moreover he portrays him as Lipsky saw him to be. Is that entirely accurate, or the same picture we’d see if Karen Green, Wallace's wife, were to tell her story? Of course not. But that’s not the story we’re telling here, and the story being told is the most important thing to keep in mind. This is not the definitive take on David Foster Wallace’s life, his work, or his mental well being, nor is it how he should be enshrined in history. In many ways, this is not even a biopic, and it should not be treated as such. Rather, this is the story of two men who met for five days, and who had an interesting and far-flung conversation on pop culture, life, and what everything all means. It’s a film about writing, about relationships, and about how we define success. It’s a snapshot of two men on similar paths but headed in opposite directions; two men who probably could be great friends, but will never quite bridge that gap. And one of them happens to be named David Foster Wallace. Don’t read too much into that.
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