This is a really brainy movie, filled with effortless, thoughtful and intelligent dialogue. The conversation is mesmerizing, almost on an Aaron Sorkin level. But they're not talking politics--they're simply musing on life and humanity. They have really insightful and thought provoking ideas. The film follows David Lipsky of Rolling Stone as he interviewed author David Foster Wallace for a profile in the magazine following the success of his novel Infinite Jest. Lipsky says "You don't open a one thousand page book because you've heard the author is a nice guy. You read it...because you understand the author is brilliant." This movie features two brilliant portrayals of two brilliant people. It is the sort of character with the quirky fast-talking mannerisms that we have come to associate with Jessie Eisenberg, but Jason Segel is a revelation in this far cry from the comedy of How I Met Your Mother. He is at once calm, yet flustered, private but open, friendly yet off putting. Wallace is enigmatic, but that is what makes everything he says so interesting--it is always a pleasant surprise.
The film ends with Brian Eno's The Big Ship. I wasn't sure when I had heard this song before but after some digging online, I recalled that it was used in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl in the homemade film. Both films punctuate a death scene rather poignantly with this song and while they are different types of scenes (one of sorrow and the other of fond remembrance), the music works in both.
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