Screen Scene: “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men”

When David Foster Wallace died by his own hand last September, he left a sad, gaping hole in the American literary community. He was not the most famous of writers ““ “Infinite Jest” was no “Twilight” ““ but he mattered very much to those who knew his work.

And it turns out he mattered very much to John Krasinski. Now thoroughly typecast by his role as sarcastic, lovable Jim Halpert on “The Office,” he seemed an odd fit for the warped intellectualism of Wallace’s writings. But there are far worse things than breaking out of one’s comfort zone, and the degree of difficulty involved in Krasinski’s directorial debut, is praiseworthy alone.

Wallace’s stories do not lend themselves easily to screen adaptations ““ they don’t have car chases or secret agents or vampires, and Krasinski’s particular choice of material is challenging even by the author’s standards.

“Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” a series of short stories from the collection by the same name, features numerous one-sided interviews and conversations, revolving for the most part around the morally questionable ways in which men approach sexual relationships. Wallace presents them without context and without connections, and they make an indelible impression because of the dramatic unfurling of the hideous men’s provocative arguments, and because of the sheer artistry of Wallace’s writing.

To make a coherent film, then, Krasinski created a character named Sarah Quinn, a graduate student conducting those brief interviews for a research project. The segments of the original stories that were not in a strict interview format were worked into the script as conversations Sarah overhears or engages, or in the form of two ushers speaking like a Greek chorus into the camera. Some segments fit more easily into the grand narrative, and some are executed more successfully than others. What “Brief Interviews” amounts to more than anything is a seriously interesting experiment, an ambitious attempt to do big-screen justice to a complex and elusive piece of literature.

When the experiment works, it’s a joy to see Wallace’s hideous men come to life. Ben Shenkman steals the show with the opening scene as a man referred to as Subject #14 who explains how he inadvertently shouts a highly unusual phrase when he orgasms. It’s hilarious and irreverent, but Shenkman doesn’t forget to keep his character’s tender humanity intact.

Krasinski’s crowning achievement is constructing the climax of the story told by Daniel (Dominic Cooper), one of Sarah’s students. Daniel has turned in a paper arguing that horrific events such as rape, although never justified, can potentially expand the mind of the victim, the way that the Holocaust allowed Victor Frankl to write “Man’s Search For Meaning.” Sarah dismisses the argument as shocking and horrific, but Daniel persists, and as he raises his voice and the stakes of his claim, Krasinski splices together shots of their conversation occurring in three different places along with defining lines from the other interviews and sets it to a swelling and dramatic piece of music. The sheer emotional force of the scene is awesome.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film fails to do such justice to the original stories. The most pervasive problem is that Wallace’s dialogue, while endlessly engaging in the written form, sounds incredibly odd when spoken aloud in conversation. Often, it feels as if the actors are doing a dramatic reading rather than embodying their characters.

Krasinski himself is most guilty of this ““ he is not remotely convincing as Ryan, Sarah’s truly hideous ex-boyfriend, and his emotionally loaded monologue has the flavor of Jim Halpert acting in a school play.

Elsewhere, his adaptation is plagued by the unavoidable fact that giving a visual dimension to these stories actually undercuts their impact. When Subject #2 begins pleading to his girlfriend in Wallace’s story and the film, it takes a while to determine how trustworthy he is. But Krasinski shows Josh Charles giving the same speech to several different women, so the jig is up from the very beginning.

Yet despite its faults, “Brief Interviews” deserves credit as a daring project and an intriguing film. Consider it a statement of intent from Krasinski, signaling empathetically that he is not content to sit back and milk his cuteness into a long, one-dimensional career.

David Foster Wallace made his own career by pushing the boundaries of fiction in several directions at once, and though he probably would have preferred either a better movie or no movie at all, Krasinski’s creative ambition is itself a fitting tribute.

““ Alex Goodman

E-mail Goodman at [email protected].