Listening is the underrated brother of learning. If you just listened to a conversation, maybe on one side a humble not-quite-master who’s been around the block a few times, and on the other a soft-spoken yet ambitious student of his craft, you’d learn. You’d learn what kinds of lessons, theories, or observations you’d learn about as well eventually. All you would need is the desire to get started, and the speakers would take you from there, probably further than you would on your own.
There’s no real map to listening. You can’t plan what you’ll listen to. And that’s what listening is for, drawing the map that you don’t have yet.
Much is similar with director James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, based on Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky’s memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. Lipsky, in 1996, travelled on a road trip with acclaimed author David Foster Wallace for an article encompassing the remaining days of Wallace’s tour promoting the recently published novel Infinite Jest. During their time spent together, lasting five days (they had never met before), the two never really settled on a single topic in the many conversations Lipsky taped for his article. Of course, they might’ve talked about the book a couple of times, but for the most part, whether it was that Wallace opened up to Lipsky or that Lipsky loosened up a bit himself, they chatted about the consequences of fame, the source of creativity, and things as intimate as relationships and family.
To Lipsky’s surprise, Wallace used every chance he got to prove that there was more to him than people had labeled him for, being a best-selling author and philosopher. The young Rolling Stone writer pledged to keep the new image with him.
The End of the Tour begins twelve years after the interview, just as Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg), middle-aged at this point, is informed of Wallace’s suicide. Not quite sure how to feel (the two weren’t very faithful to keeping in touch), Lipsky is inclined to search through the many tapes he recorded of his talks with the Infinite Jest author, played by Jason Segel, so early on in his career. The movie is a recreation of the tapes’ contents, the memories that encased the person that Lipsky was and the person Wallace continued to be.
I wouldn’t call this movie a true learning experience. If we are in one during “Tour,” we forget most of the time. But even if we aren’t, the movie makes its story something special. You wouldn’t think that a conversation trying to take up a whole movie couldn’t resist being boastful about itself, but everything feels as if they’re unfolding, not being crafted as if someone’s watching. Because there isn’t really anyone watching. The film is modest and good at not lying to itself. As the viewer, you don’t feel invasive around these interactions, but rather that you’re the speechless third member of the conversation.
As for performances (because it’s a movie of such), Segel really hits a good note. Eisenberg is the same exasperated character he always plays. Even when he’s used the right way, as in here, we notice it. But Segel, notably a strong comic actor in other works like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the much forgotten Jeff Who Lives At Home (the latter’s really funny), orients himself with a technique I hadn’t thought of before, employing his same style but in an airy, interesting way. You debate whether he’s true to the real-life person he’s playing, as you do with any biopic. But he plays him personally, genuinely, and affectionately, and even though it’s not a spell-binding performance, Wallace’s persona is in good hands.
Those who are familiar with My Dinner With Andre will be reminded of it watching “Tour,” I think in a good way. Skeptics may reject the film’s attempt to make what we’re seeing something to remember. To them I say, isn’t every conversation important in a way?
