The End of the Tour

Everyone's heard of the self-destructive creative archetype and how that story has been told a million times before in a million ways, but none of it really seems that different. The End of the Tour is another one of those stories, but somehow it did feel different, and maybe it wasn't and I'm placebo-effecting myself because I saw it in a small county theater that shows two movies a week that almost no one has heard of (the Google description says it focuses on "independent, art, and foreign films"), but even if it wasn't any different from the other movies that tell similar stories I still thought The End of the Tour was a great movie and a compelling story.

Now, I'm not sure how much of The End of the Tour was accurate to David Lipsky and David Foster Wallace's actual five days together, nor have I read Infinite Jest or any of David Foster Wallace's works, so I'm basing everything off what happened in the movie and the information that was given in the movie. I knew going into this movie that David Foster Wallace had committed suicide (I actually thought it was closer to when the interview happened), but I found the format of the film quite interesting. I wasn't sure how they would incorporate his death into the movie, or if they would at all. Basically, the whole movie is a flashback from when David Lipsky first hears about the apparent suicide of David Foster Wallace. He hears this news, goes and re-listens to his interview tapes leading the audience into the plot of the movie. At the end the movie, it goes back to what was current day David Lipsky, crying in his apartment, finishing listening to the tapes from his interview with David Foster Wallace and I thought that was a very tasteful way to integrate the suicide into the movie, rather than just putting it in as some kind of end text, or something, and I really liked the overall "flashback" set-up.

I know there was a lot of outrage when Jason Segel, a serial actor in romantic comedies, was cast to play David Foster Wallace, and I also know a lot of those people had to swallow their rage when they saw this movie because Jason Segel knocked it out of the park. It was great to see him do so well in such an uncommon role for him. A lot of his lines were these mini profound monologues, which I found wicked impressive. 70% of the time, whenever he opened his mouth, he had at least, like, 90 seconds of an incredibly thought out speech to say. He had the task to appear both humble and normal, but also ethereal and inspiring. It was obvious to me that the character David Foster Wallace did not believe that anything he was saying was worth listening to, but when you payed attention, it was some of the most amazing things that were coming out of his mouth. The fact that Jason Segel was in this role and did so well makes me want him to do more of this and less of the goofy romantic comedies, which, yes, he is very good at, but he's even better at and can make more of an impact with these inspiring roles, and he needs to do more.
Jesse Eisenberg seems to play the douchey, egotistic, intellectual really well. He was good in The End of the Tour, but I did find him annoying. His mannerisms were irritating, and he reminded me of a twitchy hamster, and he kept on making these really fake haha's during his conversations with Jason Segel, and in one particular scene when they were arguing in a car he did it a lot. I can't measure what a lot is, but it was enough for me to notice and to annoy me. I'm assuming that was apart of his character though, and not just him. I'll also assume audiences were supposed to find the character David Lipsky annoying, and in that case it was well executed, but usually, through character development, you end up pitying the obnoxious character in an "oh he's just this way because he's insecure" kind of way, and I got that he was insecure, and I still didn't feel bad for him. The only redeeming factor was that it seemed he stayed in touch with David Foster Wallace until his death in 2008 (or so the movie portrayed).
I think I found this story of a self-destructive creative different because of how his character was developed in the movie. In the beginning, when David Lipsky first meets David Foster Wallace, David Foster Wallace is meek and blunt about his skepticism of David Lipsky. The movie definitely paints David Foster Wallace as a different kind of artist. The line I remember most from this movie was Jason Segel (David Foster Wallace) saying something along the lines of "I enjoy my guyness". I found this line intriguing because in a lot of  these kind of stories, the artist finds him/herself as an outcast, not fitting in with "his/her kind" so to speak. But the movie made it very clear that David Foster Wallace perceived himself as very much a normal guy. He jokes about using his book tour to get laid and how there would be nothing wrong with just eating candy for the rest of their lives because they would at least be happy. I couldn't help but pity David Foster Wallace while his disposition switched so quickly between goofy, childish (frankly Jason Segel-ish type character), and this self deprecating, defensive demeanor. I felt more inspired by, and akin to, David Foster Wallace's story because, as a 20 year old woman studying at a liberal arts college, I could relate to it more than, say, Hemingway's story for example, or really any other kind of artist that fit into this mold of doomed creative.

I was shocked to discover the interview this whole movie was created around was never actually published in the magazine. The source material this movie took from was Lipsky's book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself , which was published after David Foster Wallace committed suicide. I've read some reviews of The End of the Tour, and if it was bad, a lot of the reasoning was because the writer of the review  thought this was just another movie romanticizing another self-destructive creative individual; one critic suggested that it was just a sort of advertisement for Wallace's book. I would disagree with both of those of those assessments of the movie mostly because I saw this movie and felt like David Foster Wallace was very personable. From what I saw, Wallace viewed himself as a normal guy. I really liked watching the dynamic between Wallace and Lipsky and how Lipsky absolutely idolized, and had so much jealousy for Wallace because he thought Wallace was so unique and brilliant, while at the same time, Wallace thought very little of his fame and considered himself simply a normal, possibly just lucky guy; I thought it was interesting that they went to a convenience store and bought candy and Coke and then sat in his living room and just talked and ate. It seemed almost too casual for the amount of fame David Foster Wallace had at the time. I thought it was a new version of a story thats been told however many times before, and even if you think it's just a certain type of movie doing a certain type of thing, it's worth seeing just to watch Jason Segel act in something other than his usual schtick, and do it really, really well.