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View Full Version : The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)



Watashi
08-28-2015, 06:08 AM
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Watashi
08-28-2015, 06:13 AM
I like DFW a lot. I've never read Infinite Jest (read bits and pieces), but his essays really shaped me growing up in college. I know there are DFW elitists out there who are boycotting this film (okay, whatever). I don't see this film trying to "capture" who Wallace was. I really found the movie about the other David, and his jealousy/admiration of Wallace as he tries to pick apart him but ultimately realizes it's futile. It's quite good and Segel is terrific.

Milky Joe
08-28-2015, 06:38 AM
Do his widow and literary agent of 20 years count as "DFW elitists"?

Watashi
08-28-2015, 07:36 AM
Do his widow and literary agent of 20 years count as "DFW elitists"?

I guess? I mean, they obviously knew a different Wallace than the film did (if they even did see it), but I don't think it means the film is not worth seeing. There is an underlying thesis in here that a lot of people can connect to even if they don't know who the "real" David Foster Wallace is (or even care to know). People, especially family members, are always sensitive about when Hollywood barges in on telling a "true story" of a complicated figure, but I think most audiences are smart (I hope) to realize this isn't the end-all portrayal of DFW and that's how everyone will remember him now. It tells a good story even if it gets the facts wrong.

I've read Glenn Kenny's interesting piece on the film (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/29/why-the-end-of-the-tour-isnt-really-about-my-friend-david-foster-wallace). He makes good points, but in the end, I don't really care if the film gets it "wrong." There's more truth in a story than getting every detail right about how someone dresses or speaks. That's what I want out of a movie and what I'll remember.

If anything this will just get people to check out his work, which should be a win.

Peng
08-28-2015, 10:13 AM
I have heard about that Glenn Kenny's piece, but I haven't read it yet because I wanted to watchd the film first. However, he really gets irrational sometimes with regards to this film. Someone on twitter teases (very lightly) about his dislike of the film and he went "you've made an enemy of me." And he had also tweeted at Seth Rogen and some other guy who's friend with Segel when they expressed admiration for his performance (although Kenny immediately admitted it was impulsive and misjudged).

Pop Trash
08-29-2015, 06:03 AM
Like Wats, I'm a long time DFW admirer going back to my salad (college) days...and I gotta say, I really liked this. It's basically an amalgamation of Stuff I Like -- I'm also a big REM fan and they feature prominently here. Segel is wonderful but Eisenberg also does some great stuff bouncing off of him. Ponsoldt does some nice lingering on reaction shots and creates a nice laid back, lived in quality. Similar to The Spectacular Now, he's good at generating chemistry between his lead actors and making something that feels honest and pure.

This is also very much The 90s I remember: offhand remarks about Alanis Morissette and OJ Simpson, John Woo movies at the multiplex, junk food, deep conversations before we were wrapped up in the internet. Hell, I even visited The Mall of America several times in the 90s (I have fond memories of buying u2's Zooropa there...but not Automatic for the People).

dreamdead
09-01-2015, 01:37 PM
I'm in the "yay" camp as well. This film works far stronger as a study of other David, who's struggling to comprehend how someone else has captured the fame and attention he desires, and so he circles DFW endlessly trying to pry him out of (what Lipsky supposes to be) his aura of contentment. There are a few beats that beg for more interesting visual designs--the going one's separate ways at the Minneapolis hotel--but this film has a great sense in luxuriating in words, ideas, and thoughts. It's what I love most about cinema--the ability to listen, and to careen from one idea to another rather than the prescribed narrative beats.

If anything, I'm hesitant about the film's final pre-credit dance sequence, which confirms a beatific quality to DFW that, while perhaps "earned," is still a bit too honorific for a film that otherwise sidesteps sentimentality.

DavidSeven
09-08-2015, 05:04 PM
Unfortunately, I didn't find this that interesting. There's not much here in the way of dramatic or filmic elements, so your enjoyment really hinges on your interest in these two characterizations. For Wallace buffs, I'm sure there's some intrique in watching Segel bring the voice alive, but it's an odd choice to base an entire film around getting to know someone who was unknown and unknowable. Eisenberg, as Lipsky, does his fidgety and lightly smug schtick, which I guess is intentional but still pretty grating at feature length. At minimum, I was sort of hoping for just an interesting free-flowing conversation in the vein of something by Richard Linklater or Jerry Seinfeld, but the interaction here is too awkward and too guarded to deliver in that respect. Watchable and insightful in spurts, but never revelatory for me.

D_Davis
09-08-2015, 07:41 PM
Richard Linklater would have been a perfect director/writer for something like this.

Milky Joe
09-08-2015, 08:52 PM
Totally. I might actually be interested in seeing it if it were a Linklater production. With Ponsoldt on board I can only imagine how safely disposable/trivial this will end up.

Irish
11-29-2015, 09:47 AM
Nay for me, but I agree with everybody, pro and con, just the same.

My two biggest problems:

- If you have no context approaching this movie, is it a good film? Meaning, if you haven't read any DFW or seen any of his interviews, does this hold together as a story or at least as any kind of character piece? Does it say anything meaningful? I don't think it does. Three paragraphs by Lester Bangs on Johnny Rotten or Brian Eno contain more wisdom about the nature of celebrity and the problem of controlling your own public image. My Dinner with Andre has a deeper, fleshier conversation between two men struggling with art and life. Adaptation and Prick Up Your Ears dramatize writers and the writing in a more satisfying way. What's left here? Shitty photographs of a wintery mid-west and on-the-nose dorm room philosophizing. Honestly, I'm a bit of a junkie for DFW -- or, more accurately and more oddly -- things about him. This movie managed to not only make him sound stupid, but made him a bore. Two things he didn't seem to be (my suspicion is that it's a problem of focus. The movie spends an ungodly amount of time circling around DFW's alleged insecurities, which are the least interesting part of anyone).

- Since the film is narrowly defined, it can never address or even admit to its own contradiction: That in some ways it is a cash-in project about someone who was ambivalent about cashing in.

A third problem:

Segal is all wrong for this part. I like him as an actor (at least since Sarah Marshall) and his persona projects warmth. But he doesn't project intelligence. Here I mean the kind of sharp edged smarts that Wallace radiated in every interview he ever gave. This isn't something you can fake or deliver or perform. Either it's there or it isn't. Whatever his other talents, based on his on screen life, I'd never mistake Segal for the smartest guy in the room. Wallace was arguably one of the brightest around while he lived.