The End of the Tour (2015)

It's been a year since my last review. I tried to continue writing during school, but we all know how that goes. I haven't been able to pick it back up on winter break either. But here I am to give it another try.

The End of the Tour portrays the five-day-long interaction between magazine reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and renowned author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel). Wallace has just gained fame from his groundbreaking novel Infinite Jest and Lipsky follows him on his book tour to interview him. But it's not like the typical magazine interview we think about. They build an actual relationship over these few days. And as human relationships work, they encounter some conflicts as well.

That's pretty much it, just the two of them talking and smoking. Smoking a lot. Apparently both of them were heavy smokers. I recall a humorous line, "Brothers of the lung." This is the kind of movie I enjoy the most. Plain and real. No fancy plot twists, fake movie dialogue, excessive computer graphics. Just some good old dialogue. Another excellent example of this would be the Before Trilogy, which I have reviewed in the past.

Their conversation is riveting. It's mainly about Wallace's life and his novel, but there's also them getting to know each other ("Do you like ice cream?"). At parts it's very philosophical but it never gets boring. Boy, could I watch them talk for a week. That's attributable to good writing but convincing acting is required as well, and both Segel and Eisenberg play their parts masterfully.

One thing about Eisenberg - I must admit I am kind of his fanboy. Ever since The Social Network, he has never let me down. He even manages to make mediocre movies enjoyable. (Now You See Me - yes, it's a guilty pleasure of mine.) What is surprising about him is that he's got a very memorable voice and these characteristic expressions, so you'd think he wouldn't be able to pull off a wide range of characters. But he has proven otherwise, from nerdy genius Mark Zuckerberg to slick magician J. Daniel Atlas.

They get into this argument, and you can kind of predict it developing even from the opening scenes. Yes, it is about girls. What else would two guys argue about. At its early stages I thought it was irrelevant and unnecessary, but as it develops it becomes much more significant than that. Don't get me wrong, women are important - but Wallace and Lipsky's argument goes to a deeper level through this initial friction and becomes much more interesting than simple girl problems.

The ending is perfect. It leaves you unsatisfied, partly because you want to listen to more of their dialogue and partly because it's not a happy ending. It's a very 'real' ending. It leaves you thinking.

What's powerful about this movie is that I actually decided to read Infinite Jest. It's a dense, 1000-page-long book - and I'm not much of a reader at all. But Wallace's character had some original, thought-provoking ideas that made me seek the book out. I even went through the trouble of ordering it from abroad as bookstores in Korea don't seem to have it.

9.0/10 - Watch it, especially if you're tired of summer blockbusters and want something that feels authentic.