[five-star-rating]Jason Siegel, Jesse Eisenberg, Joan Cusack, Mamie Gummer[/five-star-rating]
We now know anyone can suffer from crippling depression – even brilliant people like lauded author David Foster Wallace; his misery was compounded by literary prominence and worldwide attention.
He once compared the combined forces of fame and depression to being trapped in a burning high-rise: “Nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’ can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have been trapped and felt the flames to understand a terror way beyond falling.”
Wallace’s work is frequently considered equal to Steinbeck, Pynchon, and Faulkner. Yet – as his 1996 Rolling Stone article proved – he was constantly haunted by desolation, self-absorption and self-doubt.
Author/journalist David Lipsky interviewed Wallace for that Rolling Stone article. This was just after Wallace’s opus Infinite Jest started amassing accolades; because of the attention he got, the author lost the ability to hide out on his farm in Indiana. Lipsky – whose first novel had recently failed to catch fire – was jealous and frustrated by Wallace. Lipsky even wrote a 2010 book about the experience called Although of Course, You End Up Becoming Yourself. The film version of Lipsky’s story is The End of the Tour.
Despite often being funny and irreverent, as a plot, Tour doesn’t sound like much. It is, though! Some films allow us to eavesdrop on stirring, life-changing conversations. These movies don’t need fancy camera work or elaborate twists, because the characters are engaging. There’s no doubt these two men are exceedingly smart. Without quite knowing it, they could save each other’s floundering lives. They could also destroy each other. As they embark on their road trip, their tentative, shaky business partnership and budding friendship provide plenty of dramatic tension.
As Lipsky, Eisenberg mostly plays the straight man here. Yet, we can sense his irritation and professional envy of Wallace. By the end of the movie, we understand how this trip has profoundly transformed him.
Siegel’s portrayal of Wallace is nothing short of career defining. At first, he seems affected; Wallace is so panicked about this interview that he put up a front. He talks in elliptical arcs, possibly hiding sly insults. He tries to present himself as a regular guy, though we guess he’s a genius. His house is a mess; he has terrible habits; he adopts abused and unwanted dogs; he has serious mood swings; he reserves the right to retract anything he’s said. Seigel’s acting is a complete examination of a deeply fascinating, constantly conflicted human being.
Part of the gift here is that the script is by Donald Marguiles, a playwright who won the Pulitzer for Dinner with Friends. Marguiles has always been able to create intrigue merely through dialogue.
Though he greatly admires and may even like Wallace, for his job, Lipsky has to probe. He digs into Wallace’s aversion to drinking and the possibility that Wallace is covering up an earlier heroin addiction. Lipsky continuously interrogates Wallace about a mental breakdown the writer suffered in his mid-twenties. As the pressure on Wallace increases, their relationship becomes more and more strained. These scenes create fireworks and tension in ways only good, intelligent conversations can.
[rating-key]
This quiet and brainy film – mostly of just two people talking – isn’t for everyone. Yet some moviegoers will soon call this one of their favorite films of all times, because the humans here are witty and insightful. For anyone who’s struggled with depression and self-doubt, The End of the Tour is deeply validating. Anyone else who wants to experience astute people conversing about the human condition need look no further.
Honestly, Tour is one of the best movies of the year.
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