'The End Of The Tour' A Review

The End Of The Tour is a biographical drama about author David Foster Wallace(Jason Segel) over the course of the final days of his book tour for Infinite Jest. The film opens on David Lipsky(Jesse Eisenberg) in 2008 receiving the news of Wallace's suicide. He digs out his tape recorder and plays a tape of his 1996 interview with Wallace. The film then jumps to Lipsky in 1996 doing a poorly attended reading for his first novel, he pitches a piece on Wallace to Rolling Stone, then flies to Illinois to meet and accompany Wallace on his final days of his book tour. The film ends with 2008 Lipsky quasi-eulogizing Wallace, reading an excerpt from his book Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself from which the film is based.

The film is essentially about a road trip with long protracted interesting conversations on a variety of subjects but the main theme is the relationship between fame and artistic integrity. Lipsky wants to be revered but isn't, Wallace is revered but doesn't want to be. Different ideas are explored in lucid and compelling ways but the characters themselves- two relatively affluent 30-something white men- don't garner much sympathy. Or hostility either. Although what they talk about is interesting the characters themselves never elicit much more than a good-natured apathy.

Segel is passable as Wallace and shows flashes of real insight but his inherent and pervasive aw-shucks buffoon-like charm is never fully shaken off. Eisenberg, not known for his range(although American Ultra may prove otherwise), gives us Zuckerberg 2.0 this time without the benefit of speedy dialogue and Trent Reznor. His performance isn't bad there's we've seen it before in different iterations.

Fascinating ideas, compelling characters, certainly succeeds in generating interest in the late David Foster Wallace and is work.

Rent It.