You can quibble with whether Jason Segel makes a credible David Foster Wallace, or whether the new film “The End of the Tour” has anything to say about Wallace, his work or his life – tragically ended by suicide at the age of 46.
But as a portrait of someone who has made it through depression and addiction and is doing their best to forge a life for themselves in recovery, “The End of the Tour” totally nails it.
The real Wallace struggled with depression for years, but antidepressant medication had enabled him to be productive, churning out stories, essays and novels such as the massive, influential “Infinite Jest.” In the film, Wallace is wary, curious, prickly and charming, sometimes all at the same time. The movie focuses on the writer, but the Rolling Stone reporter tagging along with him on the eponymous tour probes and prods, despite Wallace’s obvious reluctance to revisit a terrifically painful part of his life.
Segel gives his character a gentleness and gratitude, and the humility of a “regular guy,” that may resonate with anyone striving to live a life as full as it is clean and sober, and one that does not deny the darkness, even as it revels in the light and dances to a singular music.
