Both the film and story end with B.I. [Brief Interview] #20.  In the film, B.I. #20 is personified as Sara’s ex-boyfriend, Ryan [John Krasinski]. After watching Sara indirectly search for an explanation for Ryan’s betrayal, Ryan reveals why he left her for another woman. The movie builds up to this interview and, once we witness it and realize that he too is a “hideous man,” her work is complete. This pat ending enables viewers to leave the film confident that they have understood its message.

While B.I. #20 also appears as the final interview in the story collection, its intent is not as overt. Wallace doesn’t imply that the subject and interviewer have dated. The interview does not clarify those preceding it. It is difficult to know what to make of the B.I. #20, other than that it is poignant and inescapably disturbing. At the end of the monologue, B.I. #20 says, “end of story.”  Since this interview doesn’t explain or contextualize the other interviews, the reader is left with the clear sense that this is not the end of the story and that, in some form, men will continue to be “hideous.”

The difference in tone and intention in the final interviews elucidates the primary distinction between the two pieces. Krasinski diminishes the mystery central to Wallace’s story. Some of this is unavoidable; without Sara’s central storyline, the movie would have been too episodic. Even if Krasinski had kept the interviewer anonymous, he needed to depict the subjects; otherwise, we would have been staring at a black screen. But in watching the rendered subjects, the viewer links the monologues to the characters, thereby fixing each interview within a predetermined context.

As Kubrick acknowledged in his assessment of Lolita, adaptations of remarkable literature are difficult. There are moments, such as the scene in which a subject confronts his shame over his father’s work as a bathroom attendant, where Krasinski’s film is exquisite. But despite the film’s ambition, it fails to capture the genius of Wallace’s story. This is exacerbated at the end of the film when the epitaph, "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you. —David Foster Wallace” lingers across the screen. The viewer subsequently contextualizes the film within the memory of David Foster Wallace. Although it’s necessary for Krasinski to pay homage to Wallace, the epitaph serves as a reminder that the film is an adaptation, one that doesn’t quite do justice to its origin.

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