It’s a big, scary, lonely old world out there, ladies and gents, full of nasty and uncomfortable things like trigonometry, team building exercises, and pineapple pizza. If you’re looking for refuge from any of those things, you may find comfort in the pages of a book, but not necessarily anything by David Foster Wallace, the literary titan whose fiction and non-fiction work was frequently heavy of heart and long of wind. Morose as his style was, DFW remains a vaunted figure in the world of the written word, so it’s no surprise that, after his tragic and untimely death, people decided to make movies about him, such as The End of the Tour, a 2015 character study directed by James Ponsoldt and based on the interviews and conversations collected in Although of Course You End up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky. The End of the Tour follows David Lipsky as he tries to get at what’s in David Foster Wallace’s head, hoping to unlock the secrets of one of the most important authors of the time. The film was celebrated for its performances and sensitive depiction of the tortured, brilliant, lonely man at its center, and today our resident Wallace Wingnut (official name for David Foster Wallace fans, no need to look it up) Nathan has chosen it for review by the ever-discerning eyes of Magellans at the Movies! Put on your thick-rimmed glasses, grab a tumbler of whiskey neat, and brush up on your Kafka for today’s expedition into the soul-devouring abyss that is the pretentious literature scene, yay!
