I think you have to be pretty arrogant to try to explain David Foster Wallace’s interior life to a wide audience. It’s probably a lot easier and more honest to stick to describing merely what it was like to be around him. To begin with, unless you’ve lived with crippling, suicidal, fatal depression, I don’t think you have the slightest idea what it’s like to go through life with the kind of massive insecurities that constantly plagued Wallace. Trying to get an audience to understand is next to impossible, and it really can only be depicted in somewhat mysterious terms.
For another thing, it is no simple thing for even an above-average intellect to understand what it’s like to be a genius. It’s just not an accessible thing. What is it like to think so quickly, to be able to store and access so much information, to be able to make calculations in your head without the assistance of a calculator or computer? Unless you’ve aged considerably or suffered some injury, you can never really imagine what it’s like to have a more powerful brain than they one you’re using right now.
Then, if you want to show an audience what it was like to be David Foster Wallace in movie form, you’re really hampered, because movies are about action, not the thoughts that swirl in people’s heads.
Finally, the less you know about Wallace’s real life the better. He wasn’t really a good person or someone you’d want to emulate. His life was tragic, really, which is why it’s possible to forgive him despite his superior attitude. But he should not be turned into a hero.
So, on the whole, a road trip bromance movie about Wallace was bound to be disappointing. It shouldn’t even have been attempted.
