It would be easy to say that most writers will love James Ponsoldt’s chatty road movie The End of the Tour, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday. Because it’s about writers talking about writing. Or maybe more accurately, everything that surrounds writing—ego, insecurity, myriad petty fears and frustrations. And it’s true that Ponsoldt’s wise, humbly sublime film does address those topics in a way that was deeply cathartic to this writer, at least. But because this movie is about the late David Foster Wallace in particular, the towering Gen X mind who birthed the seminal, touchstone tome Infinite Jest, among a lot of other fine writing, it transcends being just a movie about writing, for writers. Instead it’s a beautifully rendered meditation on the mad swirl that exists inside all of our heads. It then marvels at, and mourns, Wallace, a rare genius who could glean such meaning and insight from all the chaos of being alive. In its quiet, Linklaterian way, The End of the Tour is a profound, and profoundly affecting, movie, one that had me blubbering with happy-sad tears for the final ten or so minutes. It will no doubt be one of the high points of this festival.
Aside from Ponsoldt’s fluid, sensitive direction, and Donald Margulies’s equally nimble script (largely fashioned out of transcripts compiled in David Lipsky’s Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself), what gives The End of the Tour such poignant life is Jason Segel’s rueful, fully lived-in performance as Wallace. A tall, shaggy Midwesterner who usually hid his long hair under a bandana, Wallace often looked more like a roadie than a generation-defining novelist. Which was, of course, a part of his charm. And in Segel’s hands Wallace is indeed charming—guarded but affable, refreshingly honest about his insecurities and wise in a way very few people are wise. He’s also sad, and conflicted about his skyrocketing career. The movie follows Wallace and Rolling Stone journalist Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) on the last leg of the Infinite Jest book tour, the two young men, one hungry for the success and acclaim the other isn’t even sure he wants, as they talk, and talk, and talk, expounding on topics ranging from depression to Die Hard. Segel handles Wallace’s intricate, discursive speech with remarkable dexterity, putting Wallace’s brilliant, troubled mind on display for all of us to admire, while still managing to play a human being. That’s a tricky feat for any actor, let alone one mostly known for a CBS sitcom and a handful of Apatowian comedies.
But he more than pulls it off, giving one of those stunning, career-defining performances that, cynically or not, one comes to film festivals hoping to see. The real Wallace probably wouldn’t have liked being fictionalized on film, and his estate does not endorse this movie. But Segel, and Ponsoldt, and everyone else involved do him wonderful justice anyway. By the end of the tour, we truly feel the weight and impact of what a loss for our culture Wallace’s suicide in 2008 was, though the film ends on a note of woozy, bittersweet joy that he existed at all. Which isn’t to say that Wallace is beatified in the movie—he is shown as a real person, flaws and foibles and all. But the film does shine affectionate, admiring light on a man who, in one way or another, influenced the lives of many people. And for that, The End of the Tour hit me much harder than I expected it to. What a pleasure to spend two hours in its company.
