Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a collection of 23 short stories by David Foster Wallace, is now a feature film directed by The Office‘s John Krasinski and opening September 25th in select theaters. The film stars a varied group of actors including seasoned veterans of stage and screen — Bobby Cannavale (Third Watch, Mauritius), Timothy Hutton (Leverage, Ordinary People), Michael Cerveris (The Who‘s Tommy, Assassins), and Death Cab for Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard. These actors play the hideous men or “subjects” of Wallace‘s intellect. The stories themselves are a series of transcripts with questions deliberately omitted. It was Wallace‘s intention for readers to focus on learning about each subject‘s idiosyncrasies, exposing just how vulnerable, alienated, and weird men can be. Sara Quinn (Julianne Nicholson of Law and Order: Criminal Intent), the film‘s protagonist, is a graduate student who conducts the interviews for her anthropological thesis. Constructing a convincing narrative without jeopardizing the integrity of Wallace‘s kinetic prose is tricky, but the snippets of performances in the trailer seem promising:
