The End of the Tour (2015)

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The End Of The TourA small proportion of the movies that are made relies on pure content, conversation or tales and this is definitely one of them. The End Of The Tour is smartly executed but more of the work here is done by the writers and the two lead actors on screen for almost the whole runtime of the movie. But what lacks here is a touch of cinema or a bit of drama too for the audience to not only glued onto the seats but also to root the characters floating around it. Jason is good in his role but Jesse is the key to enrich the soul that The End Of The Tour seeks.

I am a writer. Not trying to come off as boastful. Grab a pen and a piece of paper. Jot something down. Voila. You're now a writer, too.The fact that I write-and sometimes even get published beyond these flick reviews I love composing for all of you ENORMOUSLY valued readers-is the main reason I liked "The End of the Tour". At it's core this is a rumination about the sensibility and soul of a writer. The drive. The pride. The fragility. The insecurity. The recognition. The failure. The hurt. All of these deeply felt emotions are explored and candidly brought to bare in this based on actual events chronicle of a nearly week-long 1996 interview between ROLLING STONE writer David Lipsky and gifted but painfully troubled author David Foster Wallace.A couple of things to be aware of when considering this film. You better be at least a moderate fan of both Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel, who play Lipsky and Wallace, respectively. Because every scene we see has either one or both of these guys in it.And you also best be a fan of dialogue. Man, is there a lot of it in this screenplay by Donald Margulies. Which makes sense, actually, as this account revolves almost exclusively around words, both written and spoken.We see the two main characters walking and talking. Sitting and talking. Lying down and talking. Driving and talking. Flying and talking. And here's the thing. Most of what we are listening to is pretty f-----g fascinating. At least it was to me."The End of the Tour" is a double entendre for a book promotion junket as well as something much more precious. If you don't know what I'm referring to already, I'm not gonna spoil it for you.I'll let the movie tell the story.

The End of the Tour is a biographical film about the late David Foster Wallace which is directed by James Ponsoldt, written by Donald Margulies and stars Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel. Watching this film being born in the early 21st century I had no prior knowledge to the works of David Foster Wallace and now that I have seen the film I believe that I understand more than just his life story but his outlook on himself and his life which I find is quite unique in the biographical movie genre. What makes this film standout from most biographical movies is it screenplay by Donald Margulies as instead of telling Foster's story using events in his life like on a Wikipedia page he chooses the bolder route of slowly telling you about his motivations through conversations between the two leads, these conversations that make up the film (as there isn't a truly clear narrative) are what made the movie as good as it is, as there organic nature makes the audience feel as if they are sitting down next to them making the characters both more realistic and likable. Prior to this film I would have never thought that Jason Segel would have had the acting ability to play a highly intelligent yet broken person like David Foster Wallace and in fact I chose not to watch the film with my sister expecting it to be a road trip comedy with the raunchiness of one of his previous films forgetting Sarah Marshall, but while watching this film I was both amazed and surprised by how well Jason Segel pulled of a character who was so different to anything he had every done before, in fact I would say that the only comedic actors to do a serious performance to that level would be Jonah Hill in Moneyball and Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Starring next Jason Segel is Jesse Eisenberg playing the rolling stone reporter David Lipsky; he also gives a great performance reminiscent to my favorite performance of his in The Social Network capturing the Ambitions in depth just enough to service the story. But the finest acting element was the fact that both actors had great chemistry making spending time with their characters engaging. On top of the acting and the screenplay the movie also standouts through the directing by James Ponsoldt. Unlike the acting and the screenplay the directing doesn't pop out of the screen and for some viewers that will be seen as a flaw but it actually suits the story as a stylistic approach to this film would have tarnished the realistic themes. The approach of the directing is to make you feel as if you're not inside one of the characters head but more a person sitting down and having a conversation with them and it is pulled off to a tremendous effect with James Ponsoldt using subtle camera angles and few tracking shots. In review I found the movie a breath of fresh air from the over saturated biographical movie genre and is a great film if you're either a fan of David Foster Wallace or just like intellectual character studies. I would recommend watching this film while wide awake as the film has an abundance of important snappy dialogue that is easy to miss.

There was a lot of positive buzz surrounding THE END OF THE TOUR and I don't know that I've ever seen Jason Segal in anything close to a dramatic role, so it was only a matter of time before I got around to watching it. I was also totally unfamiliar with the work of David Foster Wallace; I don't know that I'd even heard of "Infinite Jest" before this movie came around. Thankfully, you don't need to be preloaded with any of this knowledge to enjoy director James Ponsoldt's THE END OF THE TOUR, a delightfully engaging biographical slice of life. Told from the perspective of Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), the film follows him as he joins Wallace (Jason Segal) on the final stop of his book tour for "Infinite Jest". The two of them travel to Minneapolis together as Lipsky documents the journey for his article, and the two of them straddle a fine line between interviewer/subject, friends, and fellow writers. The movie gives some interesting insight into Wallace as a person and might even shed some light on the thought process behind "Infinite Jest", though I wouldn't know because I tried reading the novel after having seen the movie and only got as far as 185 pages or so before I had to set it down indefinitely. But this isn't a book review; I am here to share what I thought of Ponsoldt's film and the short version would be that it feels very personal.The majority of the film is just Eisenberg and Segal in assorted discussions set in a sequence of set pieces. This is a dialogue and performance driven film. Remember, it's a biographical pic about an author, not a war veteran. THE END OF THE TOUR is based on the real Lipsky's memoir where he discusses the time he spent with Wallace, getting to the core of what made this best-selling author tick. From what the movie offers, Wallace is a fascinating individual. He's soft spoken, intelligent, and can come across as stand-offish if you aren't familiar with him. He's a troubled man with a problematic past that he's worked to overcome but, at least in the context of the film, the question is what sort of demons the man wrestled with. Lipsky knows he will have to ask the tough questions at some point if he wants his article to see the light of day, but it's not so easy to broach those subjects when the two of them seem to hit it off pretty well from the start. Still, it's not long before Wallace is reminded that Lipsky is a man with an agenda. He's here for an interview and he can shape it in any way he pleases, and there's always a lingering tension over what Wallace feels comfortable discussing as a result. Segal does a phenomenal job as Wallace, disappearing into the character with ease. Once he dons the bandanna, glasses, and long hair, Segal adopts a softer voice and a social awkwardness and the character of Wallace emerges.I don't know that I'm as keen on Eisenberg as I am Segal, but I'm having a hard time deciding if it has anything to do with his performance or if it's just that I don't like his character. Honestly, it might just be that. I find that I sympathize with Wallace so much that I'm just as anxious about Lipsky's intentions as he is. He's not a bad person; in fact, he arrives in Illinois to find Wallace with an air of excitement. To him, Wallace is a celebrity and a man who's succeeded in the same field Lipsky hopes to break in to (i.e. writing). I believe the film implies Lipsky has only recently started at Rolling Stone so Wallace (the first author to be interviewed for the magazine) might be his big break in addition to giving him a chance to pick the man's brain on the most successful novel of the period. The two of them have an interesting chemistry together and it makes the film what it is. It was also intriguing enough that I wanted to know more about Wallace once it was over. He seemed like such a complex person, I'm curious to learn what drove him to his eventual suicide. Like I said, I wasn't able to get too far into "Infinite Jest" on my first attempt but every time I watch THE END OF THE TOUR I go back and read a little further. I would certainly recommend the movie to any interested party; if anything about what I've mentioned sounds at all of interest to you, I think it's worth checking out.