Written by Robert Scucci | Published
I hate to admit that I rarely speak publicly about my appreciation of the fiction and essays of David Foster Wallace because, for reasons I will never fully understand, his name is associated with hypocrisy. On the other hand, I get it. Infinite Jest not only is it a scary read, but you can throw it in your backpack before hiking if you want to increase your workout because it’s heavy duty, literally and figuratively.
The End of the Journeya film about David Foster Wallace based on the history of 2010 Although of course you eventually become your own by David Lipsky, debunks any preconceived notions you might have about Wallace, his career, his worries, and his battle with depression that ultimately took his life in 2008.
Based on Lipsky’s (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) multi-day interview with Wallace (voiced by Jason Segel) as the author makes his final rounds of press to promote Infinite Jest in 1996, The End of the Journey humanize the author in a way that would make anyone who thinks they are holier than thou rethink their position. Through Eisenberg and Segel’s powerhouse performances, we get a glimpse of what happens when an alarming amount of intelligence meets the kind of person who feels so trapped inside his own mind that he can’t just function as a normal person.
Wallace’s work is surprisingly verbose, and as such, he doesn’t speak verbally about his fear of living in a post-modern, post-humorous world. His essays “E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction,” “Too Far From Everything,” and “Something Called Fun I’ll Never Do Again” show how much thought went into every connection he had and how those thoughts crippled him.
You don’t need to read Infinite Jest to appreciate Wallace’s insights into modern and postmodern American life. Watch any interview, and it’s written on his face. Jason Segel, in what I consider to be the best role of his career, captures that energy flawlessly The End of the Journey. So much so that even if you have never opened Wallace’s tome, you will still know him as someone who felt lost in this world until he decided to leave it himself.
End of Tour
The foundation of The End of the Journey it’s simple. A struggling writer and Rolling Stone author David Lipsky does not believe in writing as such Infinite Jesta 1,079-page novel about postmodern American life, would be such a huge success. At the urging of his girlfriend Sarah (Anna Chlumsky), he reads a book and falls in love with David Foster Wallace, asking his editor to give him an opportunity to interview him as he ends his book tour. Once he gets the green light, he travels to Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, where Wallace lives and teaches.
Their relationship is conflicted at first. Wallace is guarded about how he answers questions while Lipsky’s tape recorder is on, and he requests that anything he wants be off the record cannot make it into the final published interview. Lipsky honors the request, and a bond of trust is eventually formed as they buy a bunch of junk food at the grocery store, where Wallace loads up on treats the second he hears about his interviewer’s expense account.
This collaboration is bread and butter The End of the Journey. As Wallace lets his guard down, he tells Lipsky how he thinks, and what’s most surprising about these conversations is how much Wallace wants to be a normal guy with a private life, despite the fact that he’s also obviously the kind of guy who writes books like Infinite Jest. You can tell yourself that he wanted to be famous as a writer, then he realized that he didn’t want the celebrity he came with.
Wallace admits that of all the celebrities out there, he’d probably want to meet Alanis Morissette because she seems like the only person who would enjoy a bologna sandwich every now and then. At the last stop on his book tour in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wallace refuses to stop at a statue depicting Mary Tyler Moore throwing her tam in the air, something he talks about at length in “E Unibus Pluram: Television and the Myth of the US” while opening up how network marketing adds layers of horror. The Mary Tyler Moore Showtoo dense to unpack here.
The War Against Postmodern Loneliness
The End of the Journey it illuminates how cautious Wallace is when answering questions, always assuming that a reporter like Lipsky will spin the story the way he wants. But when he’s asked why he doesn’t have a TV, the floodgates open.
While you can find several interviews with the real David Foster Wallace where he talks about the remote control changing the way we consume entertainment, Segel presents what I believe is the warning Wallace was trying to leave with, in the author’s words: “And it will be easier and easier, and easier and easier, and more fun, to be alone with images on our screen, but who don’t like money.” He continues that when it comes to that time, he will want to leave this world.
As someone who writes movie reviews for an entertainment news site, I am fully aware of the irony here, as I tell you to go see the movie. One of the reasons I don’t engage in social media is that what Wallace describes, although he didn’t live long enough to see it, is basically the current state of the internet. He didn’t have a television in his house because he knew it would be his downfall. His restraint did not come from being holier than thou, but from knowing himself enough to see his addictive behavior and how easily he became a slave to his tools instead of being productive.
Listen, I’m not telling anyone to go get a copy of it Infinite Jest. Watching The End of the Journeyon the other hand, it’s a good idea because the dialogue is drawn from recorded conversations between Lipsky and Wallace. While their talking points are still deep and to the point, they also serve as a conversation partner in his verbal writing, all of which contain the same basic message.
As of this writing, The End of the Journey is available to rent or purchase through Fandango Home, YouTube, Apple TV+, and Amazon Prime Video.
Rest in peace, David Foster Wallace. You would absolutely hate Instagram Reels.
