James Ponsoldt (2015)

Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky begs his editor for an assignment following the novelist David Foster Wallace on the last stages of his book tour promoting Infinite Jest.  The editor asks, ‘Is there a story there?’  Lipsky insists there is.  James Ponsoldt has brought Lipsky’s account of the few days he spent with Wallace to the screen, in what is largely a two-hander for Jesse Eisenberg (Lipsky) and Jason Segel (Wallace).  The End of the Tour prompts the question ‘Is there a drama there?’  The answer in this case too is yes, even though it’s drama of a limited kind.  Much of the film’s audience is likely to know in advance of seeing it what became of David Foster Wallace.  In case they don’t, Ponsoldt and Donald Margulies – whose screenplay is adapted from David Lipsky’s 2010 book, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace – make this clear from the start.  The exchange between Lipsky and his editor (Ron Livingston) is the beginning of a long flashback, triggered by Lipsky’s receiving the shocking news of Wallace’s suicide, in September 2008 (twelve years after the Infinite Jest tour took place).  James Ponsoldt has said in interview that ‘Wallace is a hero to me’.  Revealing before Wallace appears on the screen that he’s now dead is part of what makes The End of the Tour feel throughout like an act of commemoration.

The primary pleasures of the film come from watching two good actors and listening to the conversations of two highly intelligent, exceptionally articulate people.  The drama is thanks to exchanges between Lipsky and Wallace that are increasingly tense and linguistic one-upmanship that’s increasingly sophisticated (and to the fact that the tensions aren’t resolved).  The dialogue supplied by David Lipsky via Donald Margulies is so witty that Ponsoldt’s leads don’t just enjoy delivering the lines – they have the confidence to assume the wit will speak for itself, without their needing to work too hard to bring it out.  This enables Jesse Eisenberg and especially Jason Segel to concentrate on going deeper into their characters.  It’s interesting casting:  Eisenberg, with previous form as young men with a high IQ and a chip on the shoulder, is the obvious man to play Lipsky; Segel’s light comedy background makes him a more surprising choice as Wallace.  Segel has the advantage of playing an individual – perhaps a one-off.  The professional journalist heartlessness aspect of Lipsky is more generic but Eisenberg grounds it in a personality that’s driven and competitive beyond simply acquiring the material needed for the Rolling Stone article.  Lipsky is a published novelist too; much as he admires Infinite Jest, he never ceases to be irked by its phenomenal success.

There are good supporting turns from Mamie Gummer and Mickey Sumner, as friends of Wallace.  A visual highlight of The End of the Tour comes when Wallace, Lipsky and these two women go to a cinema – to see a crappy film – and James Ponsoldt has us watch Wallace, utterly absorbed by what’s on screen, and Lipsky and Mamie Gummer’s character utterly absorbed in watching Wallace watching.  Joan Cusack is wonderful – funny, warm, completely empathetic – as the gee-whiz driver of Wallace’s car during his stay in Minneapolis.

16 October 2015