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. When the experiment works, it’s a joy to see Wallace’s hideous men come to life.

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.

Some segments fit more easily into the grand narrative, and some are executed more successfully than others. 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. To make a coherent film, then, Krasinski created a character named Sarah Quinn, a graduate student conducting those brief interviews for a research project. 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. “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’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. 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. 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. He was not the most famous of writers ““ “Infinite Jest” was no “Twilight” ““ but he mattered very much to those who knew his work.Īnd it turns out he mattered very much to John Krasinski. When David Foster Wallace died by his own hand last September, he left a sad, gaping hole in the American literary community.

Brief conversations with hideous men