Jason Segel Electrifies 'The End of the Tour'

Director: James Ponsoldt
Genre: Drama
Starring: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Joan Cusack
Distributed by: A24 Films
Release Date: July 31, 2015
My Rating: 9/10

What do you get when you mix genius, eccentricity, awkwardness, and unadulterated wit? Authenticity. That's what Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg bring to this simple yet incredibly revelatory retelling of the last five days of the book tour for Infinite Jest, acclaimed author David Foster Wallace's masterpiece, upon its release in 1996.

After becoming dazzled by just the opening paragraph, Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Eisenberg) begs his editor (Ron Livingston) to grant him the opportunity to interview Wallace, a writer Lipsky believes "only comes around once or twice in a lifetime." Throughout this extended interview, Lipsky delves into the strange and brilliant mind of (then) 34-year-old Wallace, a Harvard graduate.

In his first major dramatic role, Jason Segel is nothing short of electrifying. He sheds his mantle of adopting well-known, doofy, well-meaning, and oddly relatable (if anything because of their shortcomings) characters like Marshall Eriksen from How I Met Your Mother or Peter from Forgetting Sarah Marshall and immerses himself into the body of an eccentric and humble novelist and English professor whose caution and skepticism are matched only by his brutal yet unobtrusive sincerity. As David Wallace, Segel explains the story underlying his bandana and his two dogs-Wallace's two greatest hyperactive, attention-seeking companion's-but in a manner that does not border on superfluous justification.

Jesse Eisenberg is just as honest in his portrayal of Lipsky and shows his determination to extract the truth, even if it signifies triggering defensive responses from his subject. Eisenberg intersperses many of his lines with short, awkward chuckles that can only be attributed to Lipsky's nervousness and awe at being in the presence of Wallace, often times alone. The 90s are given a brief yet noticeable shout-out, from flannel shirts and big antenna-donning phones, to a four-person-group car-ride sing-a-long to a then-popular Alanis Morissette song. Wallace clearly tries to remain relatively removed from the world at large out of fear of becoming a celebrity of whom the public will hold unattainably high expectations, even though he eventually realizes that he can learn from others nearly as much as others learn from him. (Isn't it ironic? Don't you think? That's not the Alanis song, by the way)

I'm not entirely sure if David Wallace was more renown when he was alive or after his untimely demise by suicide, but one thing is certain: this film captures the essence of the man during one of the highest points of his career.