Jason Segel Wows Sundance as David Foster Wallace in 'The End of the Tour'
Perhaps no movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival seemed as ready-made for mockery as The End of the Tour, and understandably so. After all,how could anyone have the chutzpah to make a movie about David Foster Wallace, the irrefutably brilliant, tormented author who, until his 2008 suicide, literally and figuratively towered over every writer of his generation? And how would Jason Segel — a sharp comedic actor, but one with scant on-screen dramatic credits — portray the soft-spoken yet linguistically agile Wallace without committing sacrilege?
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So when the lights went down at Friday night’s premiere of the film, the mood among some in the crowd was a mix of skepticism and get-the-knvies-out giddiness. Two hours later, though, Sundance had its first bona fide dramatic smash — a loving, tough, and deeply affecting two-man travelogue that’s part buddy dramedy, and part Before Sunset.
Directed by The Spectacular Now's James Ponsoldt, and adapted from David Lipsky's 2010 book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, the film finds Wallace at the end of a grueling book tour for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which had made the author an unlikely literary superstar. Joining him on this Midwestern road trip is Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg), an aspiring, insecure novelist who’s been assigned to write a profile of Wallace for Rolling Stone.
After getting over their initial awkwardness and suspicions, the two men hit the road, where they spend countless hours debating everything from the nature of fame to the lulling corruption of television to the joys of eating candy. The conversations, as shaped by screenwriter Donald Margulies, are sharp and hilarious, and Eisenberg’s turn as a clearly adoring (yet coyly manipulative) journalist is unnervingly spot-on. But the two men’s little jealousies often get the better of them: In one scene, Wallace takes an impish delight in talking on the phone with Lipsky’s girlfriend, who worships his work; later, Lipsky makes a none-too-subtle move on a woman from Wallace’s past. The author reprimands him with the kind of damning warning: “Be a good guy.” It’s a goal that could also serve as these two neurotic, self-aware writers’ shared mission statement, whether they know it or not.
After the screening, Segel told the audience that he prepared for the role by starting a small book club with friends, watching and listening to Wallace’s interviews, and devouring Infinite Jest multiple times: “I read, and I read, and I read,” he said. The work clearly paid off. Sporting Wallace’s long hair, soft stubble, and trademark bandana throughout the movie, Segel plays Wallace with a shaggy awkwardness that never fully hides the tension underneath. At one point on Thursday night, he told the crowd that, while researching Wallace, he’d looked “for the parts of us that were the same.” By the end of Thursday’s screening, it was clear he’d found them.
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