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The End of the Tour

The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's gr... Read all The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.' The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'

• James Ponsoldt
• Donald Margulies
• David Lipsky
• Jason Segel
• Jesse Eisenberg
• Anna Chlumsky
• 108 User reviews
• 190 Critic reviews
• 82 Metascore
• 4 wins & 18 nominations

• David Foster Wallace

• Bookstore Patron 1
• Bookstore Patron 2
• (as Jennifer Holman)
• Bookstore Patron 3
• Bookstore Patron 4

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The song heard on the soundtrack when the film ends is "The Big Ship" by Brian Eno , one of David Foster Wallace 's favorite songs. It was also used for the climax of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) , another film that premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
• Goofs In regards to the scene where Mrs. Gunderson gives Mr. Wallace and Mr. Lipsky a car tour of Minneapolis sites: The Mary Tyler Moore statue on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, was not given to the City by TV Land until 2002. Also, it is not legal for cars to drive down Nicollet Mall.

David Foster Wallace : It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis: feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false... and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it's all a delusion and you're so much better than everybody 'cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you're so much worse because you can't fucking function.

• Crazy credits Halfway through the closing credits, there is an extra scene told from the perspective of David Foster Wallace as Lipsky goes to the bathroom to wash out the chewing tobacco. It shows what Wallace did while he was in the bathroom: he speaks privately into the tape recorder.
• Connections Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Jason Segel/Amy Sedaris/Alessia Cara (2015)
• Soundtracks Sunlight Bathed The Golden Glow Written by Lawrence and Maurice Deebank Performed by Felt Courtesy of Cherry Red Records

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• Runtime 1 hour 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Directed by James Ponsoldt (" The Spectacular Now "), "The End of the Tour" might fit well on a double bill with " Amadeus ," another film about a genius and a lesser artist who basks in his aura. Of course, the setting is very different, and the stakes are much lower—"Tour" is a fictionalized account of the week-and-a-half that  Rolling Stone  writer David Lipsky spent following the late David Foster Wallace as he toured to promote his doorstop-sized masterpiece "Infinite Jest"—but it's still the story of a competent but unremarkable creative person observing brilliance up close, feeding on it, reveling in it and resenting it. 

It is also certainly one of cinema's finest explorations of an incredibly specific dynamic—that of the cultural giant and the reporter who fantasizes about one day being as great as his subject, and in the same field. What it definitely  isn't  is a biography of David Foster Wallace, much less a celebration of his work and worldview. Whether that proves a deal breaker, a bonus, or a non-factor for viewers will depend on what they want out of this movie. 

"The End of the Tour" is not really about Wallace ( Jason Segel ), although he's the other major character. It starts with Lipsky ( Jesse Eisenberg ) expressing amazement (but really jealousy) over a rave review of "Infinite Jest" in  New York  magazine, a moment that sparks his obsession with Wallace. It ultimately leaves us thinking about Lipsky's feelings and career trajectory, and whether he feels any guilt about using his brief association with Wallace to further his own career as a writer of books. At this point in his life, Lipsky has had just one volume published, a novel that few people bought and fewer read; after some hesitation, he foists it on Wallace while visiting him at the University of Illinois during a punishingly icy winter. 

The screenplay by Donald Margulies spends most of its time and energy observing a dance. One dancer is Lipsky. He only got  Rolling Stone  to pay for his rock-star style profile of a novelist by agreeing to ask Wallace about the rumors that he uses heroin, and his motivations for doing the story are, to put it mildly, less than noble. The other dancer is Wallace. His fiction and nonfiction were partly concerned with the meaning of the word "authenticity," and how the social rituals and technology and economic structure of modern life created false intimacies that Wallace was determined to reject. 

Theirs is a complex relationship, brief as it is. The most fascinating thing about it is how each side of it seems to be happening in a different storytelling genre. 

Wallace's side of the story is something along the lines of a light drama, perhaps even a romance, about somebody who's been burned over and over and has withdrawn from nearly all relationships save for a handful that he feels he can trust and believe in. Although the small part of the world that cares about writers' private lives thinks of Wallace as a bit of a recluse and perhaps a bit mysterious, it's immediately clear that he's just selective and self-protecting. It's the story of a man learning to trust again (in a love story, it would be "to love again") while worrying that he's going to get burned one more time. Lipsky isn't a Wallace-level intellect, he is very smart, and a good listener, and excellent at getting subjects to open up, even though his demeanor is presumptuous. He doesn't approach Wallace with the appropriate  humility. He instead comes at him from the point-of-view of a writer who believes that he is Wallace's potential equal—somebody as profound as Wallace but not as accomplished or famous, for now. Wallace seems to buy this. Why? Maybe because he's a teacher, and at least a few of his students have real talent, and he doesn't want his ego or insecurity to rule out the possibility that he might cross paths with an artist. Or maybe he's just a decent, optimistic guy.

Lipsky's side of the story often feels like the story of of a con man, or a regular person who uses other people without realizing that's what he's doing. If this were a romantic drama, Lipsky might be a drug user who swears he's gotten clean, or a recovering alcoholic who's not as far along in the process as he claims to be, or a serial cheater who wants everyone to think he's reformed and can be monogamous even though he's constitutionally incapable of that. We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop—for Wallace, who genuinely likes Lipsky even though he's observant enough to spot all the warning signs immediately, to realize that Lipsky cannot have a real friendship with him, and that in general it is a bad idea for a subject to think that he can have that kind of relationship with a reporter. 

Any journalist who's been profiling famous people for any length of time will recognize the dynamic depicted here by Ponsoldt, Eisenberg and Jason Segel, and the honest ones will be made uncomfortable by it. There is something vampiric about features like the one that Lipsky has been assigned to write. There are also elements of theatricality. As Wallace observes early on, the subject is expected to give a performance of sorts, imitating the person he'd like to be perceived as being. The reporter in turn playacts casual curiosity, and tries to push past the facade and find something real, maybe uncomfortable, best of all revelatory. 

Segel and Eisenberg, who as movie stars have been in Wallace's position many times, have an intuitive understanding of how this relationship works, and they illuminate it in the moment, with specificity and clarity. Segel doesn't really look or sound like Wallace (not that that matters; Anthony Hopkins didn't look or sound like Nixon in " Nixon " but was extraordinary) and I didn't necessarily buy him as somebody who could write like Wallace, but he's so smart and genuine and peculiar that we believe he is capable of Wallace's extreme sensitivity and delicate observations—a major accomplishment. Eisenberg is the true star of the movie—an actor of extraordinary originality and also bravery, insofar as he never seems to trouble himself with whether people will hate his characters. He's a great listener but also a rather scary one. His characters often seem to be scrutinizing other characters the way a snake might scrutinize a field mouse. There are many moments in "The End of the Tour" when we dislike Lipsky. There are a few moments where we might find him sickening. 

Is this a story that will fascinate an audience beyond editors, critics, reporters, novelists, and people who care about the problems of such people? I have no idea, though it seems unlikely; the film's incredible specificity would seem to mitigate against being discovered and championed by a wide audience, despite Segel and Eisenberg's presence in the cast. Did the film necessarily  need  to have David Foster Wallace as one of its two main characters? That's a thornier question. We rarely hear any of his prose read aloud (Lipsky reads a passage of "Jest" to his girlfriend, but that's about it) and there is nothing in the film besides some of Wallace's dialogue to indicate that the movie has any interest in illuminating Wallace's fiction, or the obsessions that he worked into them. 

It is very much an Amadeus and Salieri story, and if you are familiar with Amadeus, and the barest outlines of Wallace's life, and the fact that this is based on a nonfiction book by the writer David Lipsky, you know how the story must end: with Lipsky gaining a greater measure of fame via his brief association with Wallace and not being quite sure how to feel about it. The best thing you could say about "The End of the Tour" is that it could've been about any two creative people. That's also the worst thing you could say about it. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film Credits

The End of the Tour (2015)

Rated R for language including some sexual references

106 minutes

Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace

Jesse Eisenberg as David Lipsky

Anna Chlumsky as Sarah

Mamie Gummer

Joan Cusack as Patty

Ron Livingston as David Lipsky's Editor

Mickey Sumner as Betsy

• James Ponsoldt
• Donald Margulies

Director of Photography

Original music composer.

• Danny Elfman

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The End of the Tour

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Directed by

James ponsoldt, jesse eisenberg, jason segel, anna chlumsky, mamie gummer, mickey sumner, and joan cusack.

• Official Website

The End of the Tour tells the story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter (and novelist) David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace’s groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest . As the days go on, a tenuous yet intense relationship seems to develop between journalist and subject. The two men bob and weave around each other, sharing laughs and also possibly revealing hidden frailties—but it’s never clear how truthful they are being with each other. Ironically, the interview was never published, and five days of audio tapes were packed away in Lipsky’s closet. The two men did not meet again. The film is based on Lipsky’s critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter, written following Wallace’s 2008 suicide. Both Segel and Eisenberg reveal great depths of emotion in their performances and the film is directed with humor and tenderness by Sundance vet James Ponsoldt from Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies’ insightful and heartbreaking screenplay.

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The End of the Tour

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Jesse Eisenberg

David Lipsky

Jason Segel

David Foster Wallace

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Anna Chlumsky

Joan Cusack

Brilliant, intuitive, mature look at a unique friendship.

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The End of the Tour Reviews

The film is fascinatingly intellectual and brimming with humanity.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2021

Occasionally it feels like an excuse for introspective comments from the David Foster Wallace Book of Wisdom, but Segel finds the humanity in him, playing him as a man who lived inside his head even as his world expanded.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 3, 2021

The End of the Tour movingly illustrates how deeply a human connection, no matter how momentary, can effect a person's life.

Full Review | Jan 14, 2021

The End of the Tour is a riveting film that celebrates a literary genius by exposing his flaws.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2020

James Ponsoldt shows a very moving study on friendship, idolatry and fear of sincerity seen through the eyes of two writers. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 26, 2020

Both Segel and Eisenberg are fantastic, each offering up some of the their best work.

Full Review | Apr 8, 2020

Segal's performance as Wallace, I think, is going to end up earning him an Academy Award nomination.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

By removing the artifice and mystery surrounding the writer's life, by showing the gritty and semi-depressing details, The End Of The Tour actually ends up celebrating literature in a way that no cheesy Hemingway biopic can.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2020

If you're a fan of Wallace's work, or if you just like good writing, The End of the Tour is a must-see.

Full Review | Jan 10, 2020

A beautiful reflection of Wallace's work, specifically Wallace's signature novel, Infinite Jest.

Full Review | Jul 2, 2019

The performances are really what keep the film from falling apart and the character dynamic makes up for any sluggishness that befalls the film around the midway point before it picks up again.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 2, 2019

Featuring some of the best dialogue scenes you'll see this year, The End of the Tour is a fascinating and utterly absorbing sparring of minds - Segel is a mini revelation.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 18, 2019

Meditative and thought provoking, The End of the Tour captures the complexity of one man's life through a delicate lens.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2018

It takes a special kind of moviegoer to watch a film about two guys talking. While there is some brief relief from a marathon five day conversation including a trip to the Mall of America, this is for word lovers.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 30, 2018

Works ...as something considerably less ambitious than [the] doorstopper novel Infinite Jest: a buddy movie about the difficulty to communicate.

Full Review | Aug 29, 2018

"The End of the Tour" is a rare and insightful look into depression and how it affected one brilliantly talented author.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 21, 2018

... does not make for a compelling film, despite a pair of very good performances.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2017

If you're a fan, you'll recognize the man behind what you've read and likely feel that his memory has been well served in the small portion of his life recreated here.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2017

This is the kind of irony that Wallace himself could have spun into brilliant prose.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2017

Because [The End of the Tour] is a film about language and about two men in dialogue, it's greatness could not have been achieved without the performances.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2017

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Review: ‘The End of the Tour’ Offers a Tale of Two Davids

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By A.O. Scott

• July 30, 2015

“There’s an unhappy paradox about literary biographies,” David Foster Wallace observed in The New York Times Book Review in 2004, in reference to “Borges: A Life.” Readers who pick up such books, drawn by their admiration for a writer’s work, are likely to find themselves distracted and disappointed by a welter of iffy theories and picayune data. In the case of Borges, Wallace argued, “the stories so completely transcend their motive cause that the biographical facts become, in the deepest and most literal way, irrelevant.”

The same can be said of Wallace himself, and, for that matter, of just about any author worth reading. The work is everything; the life is trivia. And since I’m about to praise a movie about David Foster Wallace that claims fidelity to at least some of the facts of his life, I should perhaps identify myself as a devoted nonconsumer of literary biographies, an avowed biopic skeptic and, unless someone offers me a lot of money to write one, a habitual avoider of celebrity profiles. So by all rights I should hate “ The End of the Tour ,” James Ponsoldt’s new film, a portrait of the writer that has its origins in a (never-published) magazine profile. In fact, I love it.

Some of the people closest to Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, have condemned the movie sight unseen, and friends of his who did see it ( one of them also a friend of mine) have found fault with both its details and its overall design. As an ardent , ambivalent reader of Wallace’s prose and a complete stranger to him personally, I can only respect such objections. But the movie, in my view, disarms them — not because it offers an especially loving or lifelike picture of its subject but rather because David Foster Wallace is not really its subject at all. “The End of the Tour” is at once an exercise in post-postmodern literary mythmaking and an unsparing demolition of the contemporary mythology of the writer. It’s ultimately a movie — one of the most rigorous and thoughtful I’ve seen — about the ethical and existential traps our fame-crazed culture sets for the talented and the mediocre alike.

Anatomy of a Scene | ‘End of the Tour’

The director james ponsoldt discusses a sequence from his film “the end of the tour,” featuring jesse eisenberg and jason segel and opening july 31..

There are two Davids in the movie, which takes place in 1996. Both of them are writers. One is Wallace (Jason Segel), whose third book of fiction, the 1,079-page dystopian tennis-rehab epic “Infinite Jest,” has just been published to hyperbolic acclaim . The other is David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), whose own recently released novel, “The Art Fair,” has met with polite indifference. An early scene finds him on his couch reading “Infinite Jest” while his girlfriend, Sarah (Anna Chlumsky), is curled up with the season’s other fictional blockbuster, the anonymously published political roman à clef “Primary Colors.” (Oh, the ’90s. Sorry you missed all the fun, kids. Kind of sorry I didn’t.)

David L., a new, probationary hire at Rolling Stone magazine, convinces his skeptical editor (Ron Livingston) that David F.W. is worthy of a feature article, and so finds himself in Bloomington, Ill., in the middle of winter. (Wallace taught for many years at Illinois State University.) The plan is that the reporter will accompany the novelist to Minneapolis, the last stop on his book tour. He does, and that’s pretty much the plot of the movie.

Mr. Ponsoldt, whose earlier features include “The Spectacular Now” and “Smashed,” would much rather observe two people in aimless conversation than usher them through the tollbooths of narrative convention. And conversation, including the uncomfortable silences that punctuate it, is pretty much the entire substance of “The End of the Tour.” Yes, there’s a fair amount of smoking and junk-food eating, an excursion to the Mall of America and a multiplex showing of “ Broken Arrow ” (with John Travolta taking a missile to the gut), but Mr. Ponsoldt and the screenwriter, the playwright Donald Margulies, allow words to speak louder than actions.

Many of the words are Wallace’s own, uttered into Mr. Lipsky’s tape recorder in 1996 and transcribed, 14 years later, for publication in a book called “ Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself .” Funny, intriguing and revealing as this talk may be, it does not have anything like the status of Wallace’s writing. The film not only acknowledges this distinction, but it also insists on it. In his would-be profiler’s company, occasionally glancing at the menacing red light of the predigital tape recorder, Wallace is by turns cagey and candid, witty and earnest, but he is always aware, at times painfully, that he is playing the role of a writer in someone else’s fantasy. Actually writing is something he does when no one else is around.

Mr. Segel’s performance, whether it captures the true Wallace or not, is sharp and sensitive, in no small part because it’s modest and appropriately evasive. The essential David Wallace is precisely what the film reminds us we can’t see, even as David Lipsky wants desperately to track him down and display him to the readers of Rolling Stone. Wallace is caught in a familiar set of contradictions. He wants attention but craves solitude. He’s willing to collaborate with the machinery of publicity even as he worries about the phoniness of it all. He’s ambitious and eager to protect himself from the consequences of his ambition. In short, he’s a famous writer.

Movie Review: ‘The End of the Tour’

The times critic a.o. scott reviews “the end of tour.”.

As such he is, for his short-term companion, both alpha dog and prey, an object of envy as well as admiration, a meal ticket and an imaginary friend. The film poses the question “Who is the real David Foster Wallace?” as a feint. He is its premise, its axiom, its great white whale. The more relevant question, the moral problem on which the movie turns, is “who is David Lipsky?”

In real life, David Lipsky might be a great guy, but on screen he is played by Mr. Eisenberg, which means that his genetic material is at least 25 percent weasel. Wallace at one point playfully describes himself as “pleasantly unpleasant.” Lipsky is unpleasantly pleasant, which is much worse. Twitchy and ingratiating, he wants to be a tough journalist and a pal. He desperately wants Wallace to regard him as a peer and can hardly contain his jealousy. He berates Sarah after she chats with Wallace on the phone and falls into a defensive snit after Wallace accuses him of flirting with Betsy (Mickey Sumner), a poet who had known Wallace in graduate school.

His awfulness is, to some degree, structural. A profile writer, especially in the company of another writer, is a false friend who dreams of being a secret sharer. Lipsky’s assignment is to pry, distort and betray, to use Wallace’s words and the details of his existence as material for his own dubious project. Wallace knows this and acquiesces to it — “you agreed to the interview” is Lipsky’s fallback when his subject gets prickly — and generally handles himself with grace and forbearance.

You may find yourself wishing that he didn’t have to, which is to say wishing that “The End of the Tour” didn’t exist even as you hang on its every word and revel in its rough, vernacular beauty. In an ideal world, we would all sit at home reading “Infinite Jest” and then go out to eat hamburgers, argue about philosophy and watch cheesy action blockbusters. There would be no pseudo-authoritative biographies or prying, preening magazine profiles to complicate our pleasures, and ambitious actors would not dare to impersonate beloved novelists. But the world we live in is plagued by all of those things. There will always be films about writers and writing, and this one is just about as good as it gets.

“The End of the Tour” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Language. So much language.

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The End of the Tour Review

What drives you.

The End of the Tour takes an interesting approach to telling the story of David Foster Wallace by structuring it around the author's five-day interview with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky in 1996. The film may be self-indulgent at times, but stars Segel and Eisenberg anchor the proceedings with just the right amount of emotion and complexity. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

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The End of the Tour (2015)

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The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'

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the end of the tour (2015)

The end of the tour.

tells the story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter (and novelist) David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. As the days go on, a tenuous yet intense relationship seems to develop between journalist and subject. The two men bob and weave around each other, sharing laughs and also possibly revealing hidden frailties - but it's never clear how truthful they are being with each other. Ironically, the interview was never published, and five days of audio tapes were packed away in Lipsky's closet. The two men did not meet again. The film is based on Lipsky's critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, written following Wallace's 2008 suicide. Both Segel and Eisenberg reveal great depths of emotion in their performances and the film is directed with humor and tenderness by Sundance vet James Ponsoldt from Pulitzer-Prize winner Donald Margulies' insightful and heartbreaking screenplay.

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End of the Tour Trailer Starring Jason Segel & Jesse Eisenberg

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The end of the tour.

2015 Directed by James Ponsoldt

Imagine the greatest conversation you've ever had.

The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'

Jason Segel Jesse Eisenberg Mamie Gummer Mickey Sumner Johnny Otto Anna Chlumsky Joan Cusack Becky Ann Baker Ron Livingston Stephanie Cotton Dan John Miller Noel Fletcher Michael J. Stalmer Punnavith Koy Ben Phelps Joel Thingvall Ryan J. Gilmer Alan Holasek

Director Director

James Ponsoldt

Producers Producers

David Kanter Matt DeRoss Louise Lovegrove James Dahl Ted O'Neal James Samson Rowan Riley William Colling

Writer Writer

Donald Margulies

Casting Casting

Avy Kaufman

Editor Editor

Darrin Navarro

Cinematography Cinematography

Executive producers exec. producers.

Paul Green Donald Margulies Mark Levinson

Production Design Production Design

Gerald Sullivan

Art Direction Art Direction

Sarah M. Pott

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Yvette Granata Derek Berk

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Matthew Bramante

Composer Composer

Danny Elfman

Sound Sound

Leslie Shatz Greg Mauer Ryan Collins James Bailey Jean-Yves Munch Joel Walker

Costume Design Costume Design

Emma Potter

Makeup Makeup

Karri Farris Julie Strating

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Stephanie Strowbridge Katherine Kousakis

Anonymous Content Kilburn Media Modern Man Films

Releases by Date

23 jan 2015.

• Theatrical limited

31 Jul 2015

22 jan 2016, 12 nov 2015, 19 nov 2015, 11 feb 2016, 17 mar 2016, 04 jan 2016, 18 mar 2016, releases by country.

• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical 0
• Theatrical 15A
• Theatrical Kids+13

Netherlands

• Premiere Sundance Film Festival
• Theatrical limited R

106 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Matt Singer ★★★★ 6

There can be great joy in seeing yourself onscreen. And there can be pain as well.

In The End of the Tour , Jesse Eisenberg plays a writer named David Lipsky. He has a full-time job at Rolling Stone , and he’s just published a novel. By most standard definitions, he would be considered "successful." But his novel’s gone mostly unnoticed and writing boy band profiles isn’t exactly fulfilling. Something’s missing.

When David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest , published around the same time as Lipsky’s own novel, becomes a critical sensation, he reacts with skepticism at his rival’s achievement. Then he reads that achievement for himself. When he does, director James Ponsoldt holds on a long shot of Eisenberg sitting on Lipsky’s couch,…

Review by Buddy O ★★★★½ 1

Jason Segel needs to be in more things.

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 11

The End of the Tour is an intimate and delicate exploration of artists, their motivations, and their various influences on aspects of fame, ego, and relationships. With the perfect modern romance The Spectacular Now within his relatively-slim filmography, James Ponsoldt has already set a high-bar in regards to expectations, but I can happily report that my predictions for The End of the Tour came true. This is a beautiful film.

Supported by two stunning performances, The End of the Tour succeeds so brilliantly because of the rapid-fire and supremely naturalistic screenplay, allowing substantial character depth and richness to be drawn from the pages. Jason Segel is the most talked-about aspect here, and for good reason. His portrayal of David…

Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 5

Nashville Scene review . One tiny thing I couldn't possibly find a way to fit into it, but which will probably be what I'll recall most vividly about this rather mundane film in years to come: Wallace puts Murmur on at his house, and we actually hear the album play as he and Lipsky talk. As in, "Perfect Circle" ends and then "Catapult," which is in fact the next song, begins. Whether because of rights issues or just because dialogue scenes rarely run long enough, hearing two consecutive songs from the same album—commonplace in real life—almost never happens in movies. In fact, I can't remember another example offhand, which is why it jumped out at me. A meaningless touch, perhaps, but welcome nonetheless.

Review by LETTRISTB0XD 2

Spectators who enjoyed this film may also enjoy: -My Dinner With Andre -Before Midnight -Nekromantik -2 hours of defocused images of snow accompanied by introspective ambient synths -Placing the Blu-ray on a shelf next to This Is Water and none of David Foster Wallace's significant works -Imagining David Lipsky falling down an industrial staircase that descends infinitely into the void

Review by matt lynch ★★½ 1

Spoilers for BROKEN ARROW I guess.

Review by Sally Darr ★★★★ 3

fuck me I have to read infinite jest now

Review by Kurdt ★★★★★ 11

First, some context. I first watched this film last November, loved it, and became intrigued about David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest for those that don’t know. Of course I’d heard of IJ, this infamous gargantuan novel that had astounded readers and seemed to take on a life of it’s own as something people would declare “changed their life” on a relatively regular basis. I had half-considered reading it a few times in the past but the idea of reading a 1000+ page novel just killed any vibe I had with it. It certainly sounded great, but I had never read anything that long in my lifetime; I was also on a binge to read as many books as…

Review by Gonzo ★★★★½ 2

▶ 2015 Movie Rankings

“I don't think writers are any smarter than other people. I think they may be more compelling in their stupidity, or in their confusion.”

It's crazy how such a great film ends up buried and forgotten come awards season, but here we are. Fifty Shades of Grey is now an Academy Award nominee. The End of the Tour , however, is not.

Don't be put off by the seemingly boring premise of two guys simply talking, The End of the Tour is an excellent and absorbing character study. The road-trip biopic is like this generation's My Dinner with Andre —nothing fancy, never showy, but rich in profundity and emotion. Even the ending is low-key brilliant.

The film works…

Review by Disgustipated ★★★★★ 2

For most of my life, from as early as I can remember, I suffered from major depression. I sometimes felt compelled to kill myself, yet I was simultaneously desperate to remain alive. Despite the constant pull towards death, as though the grim reaper was hooking my by the neck with the round end of a walking stick and trying to yank me out of myself, I never once wanted to give up the ghost of this experience called life in all of its chaotic, uncertain and absurd glory. As such, I found it difficult to reconcile these two diametrically opposed feuding desires, locked as they were in some kind of Manichaen battle to the death. It almost seemed that Freud…

Review by Josh Larsen ★★★★ 4

Nimbly takes some of the more provocative, wide-ranging ideas from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest – about loneliness, ego, addictive entertainment and American achievement – and lets them play out in the intimate arena of conversation. It’s My Dinner with Andre, but set in cars and over the dismal junk food that the movie suggests was the basis of Wallace’s diet.

Full review here .

Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★ 15

Having read a fair bit of DFW and being a big fan of his work, The End of the Tour  manages to, I think, capture a little of the man: a brilliantly talented writer who was deeply troubled and in many ways, flawed and imperfect, but these qualities are precisely what made him the great artist he was. People have a tendency to deify Wallace and the film does a great job at sort of demystifying him—this is for the best. For as much as I admire his work, I must admit that I’m not a fan of people who put him or any other profoundly skilled artist on the kind of pedestal that he often ends up on. Though this…

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The End of the Tour (2015)

Why didn't david lipsky's interview appear in rolling stone magazine.

In March of 1996, after Lipsky spent five days traveling on the Infinite Jest book tour in Illinois and Minnesota, he was preparing to begin writing his profile on David Foster Wallace. However, the profile never happened. "There had been some heroin troubles in Seattle," said Lipsky during a Center for Fiction speaking engagement , "and so I got reassigned to that story. ...and when I got back and finished the [heroin] story, it was about a month and a half afterwards and it was too late. So I never had to write the piece." As shown in the movie, it wasn't until after David Foster Wallace's suicide in 2008 that Lipsky revisited his recorded interviews with Wallace, which he published in 2010 under the title Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself . -The Center for Fiction The real David Lipsky never wrote his profile on David Foster Wallace for Rolling Stone because he was pulled away for another assignment, and it eventually became too late to do the piece.

Did David Foster Wallace's estate support the making of the movie?

No. In researching The End of the Tour true story, we discovered that the David Foster Wallace Literary Trust conveyed strong opposition to the movie, making it clear that they were never contacted, nor did they give permission to the filmmakers. Upon learning of the movie, they released the following statement, which reads: "The David Foster Wallace Literary Trust, David's family, and David's longtime publisher Little, Brown and Company wish to make it clear that they have no connection with, and neither endorse nor support The End of the Tour . This motion picture is loosely based on transcripts from an interview David consented to eighteen years ago for a magazine article about the publication of his novel, Infinite Jest . That article was never published and David would never have agreed that those saved transcripts could later be repurposed as the basis of a movie. The Trust was given no advance notice that this production was underway and, in fact, first heard of it when it was publicly announced. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no circumstance under which the David Foster Wallace Literary Trust would have consented to the adaptation of this interview into a motion picture, and we do not consider it an homage." -LATimes.com

Did David Foster Wallace really live alone with his dogs in rural Illinois?

Yes, after he had written a significant amount of Infinite Jest , he bought his first house on the outskirts of Bloomington, Illinois and got his first dog, Jeeves, at the pound. Like we see in The End of the Tour movie, he was a bit unkempt but still highly intelligent and insightful. He painted his writing room black and filled it with vintage lamps ( The New Yorker ). Eventually, he did marry, tying the knot with artist Karen Green on December 27, 2004 ( Rolling Stone ). Jason Segel (left) in The End of the Tour movie, and the real David Foster Wallace (right) delivering a 2005 commencement speech .

How accurate are the conversations between David Lipsky and David Foster Wallace in the movie?

The End of the Tour true story reveals that the majority of the conversations in the movie between the author Wallace (Jason Segel) and the journalist Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) were taken almost verbatim from the real David Lipsky's taped conversations with Wallace. -SlashFilm.com

How exactly did David Foster Wallace die?

On September 12, 2008, David Foster Wallace's wife, artist Karen L. Green, returned to their Claremont, California home to find that Wallace had hung himself from a patio rafter. He left a two-page note and prepared part of the manuscript for The Pale King , the novel he had been working on but had not finished ( Every Love Story is a Ghost Story ). His father, James Wallace, said his son had suffered from depression for over twenty years and in June 2007, had stopped taking his primary medication after suffering severe side effects ( The New York Times ). When his depression returned, he underwent electro-convulsive therapy and even tried going back onto his old medication, phenelzine, but it had lost its effectiveness ( Rolling Stone ). Jason Segel (left) portrays David Foster Wallace (right), who committed suicide on September 12, 2008.

When did David Foster Wallace begin suffering from depression?

David Foster Wallace was first diagnosed with depression in the early 1980s when he was an undergraduate at Amherst College. Ever since that time, he had used medication to manage his symptoms ( The New Yorker ). "He had left for college and he came back his sophomore year in the middle of the year unexpectedly," said sister Amy Wallace during an interview with Electric Cereal . "This just stunned all of us. We had absolutely no idea what he was going through and what he was struggling with, and that was a very memorable and difficult time." Amy says that David had been "a very, very volatile and moody teenager," but he was "very, very secretive too." She believes that he had likely been having depression-related feelings in high school, especially in his senior year of high school, and the depression got much worse during college. -Electric Cereal

David Lipsky turned the transcripts of his conversations with the real David Foster Wallace into a book titled Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself . Did travelling with David Foster Wallace really have a profound impact on David Lipsky?

Yes. "Travelling with him was about as much fun as I've had travelling with anybody or ever talking to anybody," says the real David Lipsky. "He was just incredibly awake." -The Center for Fiction

Why did David Lipsky decide to turn his essays into a book after David Foster Wallace died?

"I wanted to think of a way to kind of remind people of what he was like when he was alive," says the real David Lipsky. Following Wallace's death, Lipsky received an email from Wallace's sister, Amy, who said she was being contacted by reporters and fans. She expressed her desire that her brother be remembered as a "real living person." Lipsky decided to write the book as basically a transcript of them talking because he wanted to honor Wallace's fear of having someone write about him and shape the conversation however they wished. The book, titled Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace , became the basis for The End of the Tour movie. -The Center for Fiction

David Foster Wallace's 1,079-page novel Infinite Jest is a satire about the entertainment-obsessed culture in America. What is the novel Infinite Jest about?

At 1,079 pages, David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest takes place in a near-future North American dystopia where the United States, Mexico, and Canada form a giant superstate called the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.). The novel is not science fiction but rather falls into the realm of satire, humorously addressing various elements of American culture, including entertainment and addiction, which it suggests adversely affect our ability to think and connect with other people on a meaningful level. What does our indulgence in such pleasures say about who we are as human beings? The characters that bring these philosophical debates to life interact mainly within the novel's two primary locations, a tennis academy and a halfway-house, which turn out to be surprisingly similar.

For more insight into The End of the Tour true story, watch two David Foster Wallace interviews, including a 1997 appearance on Charlie Rose and a candid interview on the German television station ZDF. Then view an interview with the real David Lipsky, portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg in The End of the Tour movie.

• The End of the Tour Official Movie Website

Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

THE END OF THE TOUR

This story of the five-day 1996 interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace explores the tenuous yet intense relationship that develops between journalist and subject.

A compassionate biography that swerves convention, The End of the Tour is anchored by two ambitious lead performances and a sharp, observational screenplay. James Ponsoldt fashions a literary road movie that finds humor and a pensive melancholy in the intangibility of fame and the creative process.

The End of the Tour

1 HOUR 46 MINS

Writer and journalist David Lipsky interviews author David Foster Wallace for Rolling Stone magazine.

Movie Trailer

Cast & Crew

Jesse Eisenberg David Lipsky

Jason Segel David Foster Wallace

Becky Ann Baker Actor

Anna Chlumsky Sarah

Joan Cusack Patty

Mamie Gummer Julie

Ron Livingston David Lipsky's Editor

Mickey Sumner Betsy

Danny Elfman Original Music

Where to Stream

Upcoming TV Airings

The airings below are based on a generic national schedule. Times and dates can vary by TV provider.

Friday, April 12

Writer David Lipsky interviews author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) for Rolling Stone magazine.

Sunday, April 14

Tuesday, April 16

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After The Eras Tour Movie, Is Disney Boss Teasing More Taylor Swift Concerts Coming To Disney+?

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) may not be causing actual seismic activity from the home viewing parties that have been happening since the iconic concert special became available to stream with a Disney+ subscription , but it’s definitely making waves over at the House of Mouse. Disney CEO Bob Iger indicated as much during the shareholders meeting held April 3 , so is it possible that Taylor Swift will be teaming up with the streamer for future concert specials?

That question was asked directly to the CEO at the end of Wednesday’s call, and — as reported by our own Dirk Libbey — he didn’t have anything to announce at that time. However, Bob Iger did say that Disney wants to continue their great relationship with Taylor Swift.

The 13-time Grammy winner always has upcoming projects for Swifties to be excited about, so there’s undoubtedly plenty of potential for concert specials and more on Disney+ in the future. In addition to the Eras Tour concert film that was released in March, the streaming service was already home to Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions , a documentary where she spoke about and performed all 17 songs from her eighth studio album.

After Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour special left Netflix at the end of 2023, is it possible Disney+ could pick that up for itself — possibly to coincide with the as-yet-unannounced release date of Reputation (Taylor’s Version ) ? Could there possibly be accompanying material with the upcoming release of The Tortured Poets Department , Taylor Swift’s 11th album, out April 19? 

With Bob Iger saying there was nothing immediate to announce, those possibilities don’t seem especially promising, but you can never tell with Swift, who is known to be very intentional about when and how she reveals these sorts of projects. 

With the Midnights artist being the biggest celebrity in music right now — if not the world — Disney definitely should be looking for ways to grow their relationship with her. One of those avenues may be to bring more Taylor Swift into the Disney parks . Can you imagine a “Getaway Car”-themed roller coaster or a fireworks show where the kingdom lights can shine just for me and you?

Between Taylor Swift and Disney, there are more than enough creative juices to keep the projects coming. But as Swifties wait for those things to come to fruition, they appear to be more than happy to continue replaying their favorite moments of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie . The artist added all three acoustic sets from the shows that were filmed in Los Angeles, allowing fans to experience even more of the Eras Tour surprise songs than they got in theaters or by renting the concert special afterward.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) is available to watch online from anywhere and be sure to check out everything else that is new and upcoming to Disney+ . 

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Every Drake Subliminal, Cryptic IG Caption, and Speech Since “Like That” Dropped

Drake hasn’t responded with a diss song since “Like That” dropped, but he has been doing a lot of talking through subliminals, IG captions, and speeches. Here’s a timeline of them all.

Drake once rapped , “I waited four days, nigga, where y’all at?” Well, now it’s been 19 days since Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” verse dropped, and The Boy has yet to respond with a diss track of his own, but he has been dropping a lot of subliminal breadcrumbs that suggest his return fire might be imminent. 

Future and Metro Boomin’s next album We Still Don’t Trust You arrives this Friday, which could potentially contain more smoke for the Toronto rapper. But will Drake respond first? Joe Budden says he has “good information” that both Drake and Kendrick have “nuclear ” response tracks ready to go, and it seems they could drop at any time. But so far, Drake has kept his responses to subliminals and sneaky IG captions. As we anxiously anticipate the next round of this epic battle, here’s a timeline of what Drake has been up to since “Like That” dropped.

March 23: Drake displays visuals of Princess Diana on tour

@caogrl real recongnizes real #drake #tampa #bigasthewhat #concert ♬ original sound - viv

March 24: Drake comments on the feud during concert: “I’m 10 f*cking toes down”

Drake speaks on the disses… “I got my head held high, my back straight, I’m ten f**king toes down… and I know no matter what there’s not a n**ga on this earth that could ever f*ck with me in my life.” pic.twitter.com/gsdS0STn8m — Complex Music (@ComplexMusic) March 25, 2024

March 24: Drake quotes Nav lyrics in caption after Instagram unfollowing

View this photo on Instagram

Later that same night, Drake shared a photo from the show on his Instagram, quoting a Nav lyric: “I ain’t picking up I’m in Turks lil baby.” This came shortly after Nav unfollowed Drake on Instagram, post-“Like That.” It was later revealed that Drake had also unfollowed his fellow Canadian rapper on social media as well. 

March 28: Drake makes another subliminal IG caption that insinuates he’s going to “war”

Drake loves to make sneaky Instagram captions, and on March 28, he shared a new carousel of images on Instagram, this time captioning the post: “They rather go to war with me than admit they are their own worst enemy.” This is almost certainly a reference to Future, Metro, Kendrick, Rick Ross, and possibly more rappers who are allegedly teaming up to try and go to war with him.

March 29: Drake says he’s “down to make it worse” in his next Instagram post

A week after “Like That” dropped, it became clear that the record would be going No. 1 the following Monday, and Drake’s next Instagram caption seemingly alluded to this when he wrote, “I could never sell ya’ll out to sell my latest work. Never do you bad out the blue but I’m down to make it worse.” The first half of the caption could be a reference to Metro and Future riding the wave of Kendrick’s “Like That” verse to get another No. 1, and the second half of the caption might be about rappers like Rick Ross who seemingly started feuding with Drake at the same time. 

The pictures included in the carousel also contain some clues about Drake’s current feelings about the whole situation. The fourth picture features an owl with the words “We never sleep” written in the upper left corner, which could imply that he’s been on a response this entire time. The next photo is an IED steel pipe bomb , which is an improvised explosive device that’s often used in wartime for roadside or homemade attacks, which could be a hint that he’s ready for war. And the last photo in the post is the cover of Kate Ward’s 1955 children’s book A Story That Has No End, which could be Drake implying that this battle will be child’s play? There is no synopsis available for what the book is actually about . 

April 2: Drake shares an Instagram Story of himself in the studio

Drake and Noel working 👀 pic.twitter.com/LxC6k9V69c — Drake Fan Page (@DrakeDirect_) April 2, 2024

April 6: Drake shares an image of an NBA championship trophy and notebook in a locker room

Drake via his IG story pic.twitter.com/jdIoEW5n30 — Drake Fan Page (@DrakeDirect_) April 7, 2024

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