I was deeply moved by this look at the brief but profound connection between David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), a struggling novelist and Rolling Stones writer and author of the book this film is based on and the film’s co-author, and David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), the talented but troubled author of the monster comic novel of despair and survival in the American void, Infinite Jest (1996) whose suicide shocked and saddened readers around the nation in 2008. Awed by the book, Lipsky convinces his editor to arrange to let him visit with Wallace as he finishes his book tour. Its half road trip (Lipsky’s always on the road and then the two journey to Minneapolis) and a buddy film that sees an odd and very funny and sometimes fraught friendship emerge. The film, shot in very harsh winter conditions, chronicles the interactions between the shy, and, rightly, cautious novelist and the aspiring interviewer who wants to both please his boss with a blockbuster and truly come to understand this very private man as a person and as a writer. The former sometimes leads him to go beyond legitimate behavior while the latter results in some profound conversations. When he lets his guard down, Wallace is a remarkably conscious/self-conscious person. He is a TV and junk-food junkie who is both deeply analytical and plagued by terrible insecurities, including (rightly) his own fear of harming himself. (He suffered from depression for over 20 years and was, then, being treated with antidepressant medication). He and Lipsky clash as males seeking to possess the women in their lives. Wallace’s relationships with women were, to say the least, tumultuous. The filming was fast and furious yet that helped the feel of discovery the two men experienced become all the more real. Segel and Eisenberg met for the first time when they began filming. Both are fine in their roles. Segel shines in the deeper, troubled man trying desperately to remain real in a faux universe. He teaches undergraduates writing at Illinois State University, disparaged by the sophistos of NYC and the Rolling Stone as a pathetic Midwestern college. Keeping it real for him is not simply a device, it’s imperative to his survival. Eisenberg’s sometime irritating and prying journalist-sometime sincere person asking an honest question because he really does care, gets deeply into Wallace’s painful attempt to remain genuine and meaningful while dealing with his demons. The film fulfilled the producers goals: I now want to read everything Wallace wrote