David Foster Wallace He was one of the most envied and admired writers of the 20th century. the end of the tour by director James Ponsold portrays Wallace at the age of 34, at the exact moment when celebrity began to catch up with him. It was 1996, the year he appeared in Times cover of a magazine and suddenly every writer in America started wanting to be him. The “tour” is the one that followed the publication of his most famous work: infinite frivolity, a novel of more than a thousand pages. Wallace was portrayed as a writer capable of bringing back more than anyone else the sense of what it is like for him to be alive in the modern Western world. He was able to write a novel before graduating, attended Harvard, became a brilliant academic, and hanged himself in 2008 at the age of 46. It is not easy to talk about David Foster Wallace. It surely wasn’t for James Ponsoldt, who received no support from the novelist’s family. It takes great courage to bring such a monumental, complex character to the screen. In any case, the end of the tour it is not a biopic, but rather a snapshot depicting Wallace in 1996, during the promotional tour for Infinite Jest. Wallace (impersonated by an amazing jason segel), was accompanied by David Lipsky (the equally great Jesse Eisenberg), has Rolling Stone journalist in charge of interviewing him. During the five days they spend together, the two young people get to know each other, learn to distrust and then trust each other, like in a long game of chess in which everyone tries not to give too much to the other.
Wallace was obsessed with the idea of being portrayed as a literary star, a cliché he strongly detested. During their time together, the two Davids discussed movies, novels, television, sports, drugs and addictions. This last theme was recurrent in Wallace’s work. He was obsessed with addiction: he felt there was something really “American” about the constant need to use media as an escape tool to avoid boredom, pain, loneliness. From this point of view, the last words of David Lipsky’s book, which inspired the end of the tourare very significant: “The interview lasts five days and ends with the last word that David has said to me. (“only”). A word that had a great and complex value for him. After his death I reread everything we have talked about during these days together. And I thought it was typical of him to have used that word in a prom night context.According to Wallace, literature was an antidote to loneliness. Ponsoldt’s film reveals the man behind the myth of the brilliant novelist, sidestepping the flattering attempt to explain what lay behind such an extraordinary talent. That’s why the film is for a niche. audience only, and doesn’t convey much information to those who don’t know its protagonist. Perhaps that is the only fair way to represent David Foster Wallace, especially if we accept the idea that the human mind is somehow irresponsible. Despite Lipsky and Wallace’s thoughts they are far more effective on paper than on screen, the end of the tour it is a very well directed film, with amazing performances, great attention to detail and an extremely faithful translation of Lipsky’s book. A truthful and honest portrayal of Wallace, one he might not have hated.