Essentially a conversation between the two men, the film is actually a staggering, inspiring achievement that never falls prey to pretentiousness, thanks to a transcendent performance by Segel, James Ponsoldt’s exquisitely mundane direction, and Donald Margulies’ haunting adaptation of Lipsky’s memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself.
In this instance, the subject is late Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) in a five-day interview with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg).
In lieu of conventional biopics that attempt to cram an entire life story story into two-plus hours,The End of Tour focuses on a single event or stage in that person’s life.