The End of the Tour 2015

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: The End of the Tour is so effective because it's far too smart to engage in ominous foreshadowing. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The script is so full of acute observations that I found myself scribbling down the whole movie as I was watching. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: There's too little drama and insight to this dramatization of journalist David Lipsky's encounter with the late 'Infinite Jest' novelist David Foster Wallace. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: The result is less portrait of an artist than snapshot of a brief, meaningful encounter, shared between two men enjoying different stages of professional success. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The film consists of the two men talking, and not a lot else. But the performances, by Jason Segel as Wallace and Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky, are perfect. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Made with love and skill, the movie deserves to be seen. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Moving, morally engaged drama. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Many feel the film, based on Lipsky's interview transcriptions, carries a ghoulish aura of opportunism. It doesn't strike me that way ... Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: In Segel's performance, [the film] captures the quandary of an immensely gifted and immensely troubled writer who disdained the celebrity he also, without fully fessing up to it, sought. Read more

Patrick Dunn, Detroit News: Taken as a film about two fictional characters, "The End of the Tour" is a stimulating delight. But it's awfully hard to call it a true honor to its subject's memory. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: It's a profoundly moving story about a towering talent who seemed to feel too much and judge himself too harshly to stick around for long. What a shame. Read more

David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter: This is no conventional biodrama about the tortured artist, but very much the film that lovers of Wallace's dazzlingly perspicacious fiction and essays would want. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: Donald Margulies' screenplay distills Lipsky's material in a way that's both tender and incisive. It gets the quasi-friendship between journalist and subject in a way that few films do. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: This is a peel-back-the-layers drama that addresses the perplexing themes of "Infinite Jest," which apply to us all. What "The End of the Tour" focuses on is truly an axiom for our times. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: More intellectually than emotionally compelling, but Segel's sincere performance as Wallace gives the movie a beating heart. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The film, despite its flatness, is worth exploring, just as the writer's unremarkable home is picked apart by Lipsky, who prowls around like a cop, noting the contents of the bathroom cabinet and the photograph of Updike on the wall. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: The movie is only for Wallace buffs and one other, even smaller group: journalists who have interviewed a reasonably famous cultural personage. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: This great movie from director James Ponsoldt may have saved Jason Segel from a life of infinite cinematic jest. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: 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. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: We're in the company of a great character here, with a lot on his mind, a lot to say. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: An illuminating meditation on art and life with Jason Segel giving the performance of his career, potently catching the internal conflicts of celebrated novelist David Foster Wallace. Read more

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader: Now, [Lipsky's] book serves as the basis for this always talky, often engaging, occasionally fascinating, and sometimes shaggy but never quite boring movie starring Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky and Jason Segel as Wallace. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: What Segel does, from his opening minutes on screen to the movie's end, is craft a portrait of what feels like an utterly real person, not an actor's portrayal of one. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I greatly enjoyed it and would watch it again ... Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Road trips are a fairly routine framework for movies, often with a focus on two traveling companions. Never have I seen one that moved me so close to tears as "The End of the Tour," which transforms that common clay into a work of beauty. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Despite a premise that seems anything but cinematic, "The End of the Tour" is an offbeat and fascinating film. Read more

John Semley, Globe and Mail: The performances, the writing, the direction, Segel's D.F.W. impression, everything is just fine. But The End of the Tour is disgraceful. It feels like it's towing out the real Wallace's ghost to perform some soppy parody of himself. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: It's a movie that makes thoughtful drama out of the essential insanity of celebrity journalism, wherein a star proclaims humility while a scribbler promises idolatry. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: What it has to say about the act of creation, not to mention the act of talking about it to an interviewer, is rich and fascinating. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Bedecked in Wallace's signature head bandana and loose-limbed slovenliness, Segel is totally persuasive as a troubled brainiac, socking over Wallace's uneven flow of verbiage and melting ever so slightly in the heat of a fanboy-interrogator. Read more

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun: What we have here is a road trip about two guys talking. And it's riveting. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: A pleasantly talky chamber piece ... Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Ponsoldt and Margulies have squeezed every last drop of subtext out of the material, and at times the movie's small canvas feels momentous. They've found the inner tensions in people's presentations of themselves in a way that's positively Wallace-like. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: A thoughtful, moving testament to genuine connection. Read more