The Whole Wide World
by Dan Ireland
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DVD details
Actor: Ann Wedgeworth, Benjamin Mouton, Harve Presnell, Renée Zellweger, Vincent D'OnofrioDirector: Dan Ireland
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-07-29
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Whole Wide World
DVD Review: A chick flick that macho guys tolerate VERY well
Summary: 4 Stars
Funny that someone would produce a "chick flick" based on the relationship of Novalyne Price to author Robert E. Howard, creator of the sci-fi/fantasy character Conan. No doubt someone in Hollywood thought the irony of filming a romantic character study of the man who wrote the classic male-oriented action-thriller stories of the 1930s would be a good way to attract an unlikely mix of female romance fans and fans of the Conan books and comics.
Well the ploy worked, as I got my husband (severely allergic to chick flicks) to sit down and watch this one with me. "You probably won't like this," I said, "but it does show two creative people, one of them is the guy [Robert E. Howard] who wrote the Conan books."
Vincent D'Onofrio plays Robert E. Howard, a man who simultaneously looks sympathetic and psychopathic (his portrayal of Private Pyle in "Full Metal Jacket" is one of film history's creepiest moments). That he actually resembles Howard as a bonus.
Timeless beauty Rene Zellweger plays the intelligent Price, a local Texas school teacher who becomes romantically interested in Howard, a recluse that types his stories with extreme intensity in the privacy of his home while taking care of an ailing
mother.
My favorite scene is the one where where Renee's character is demonstrating how much she appreciates language in its ability to describe the scenery around them. Robert E. Howard's response boils down to, "That's great, but what the hell happens?" and he begins imagining an exciting adolescent heroic fantasy intruding into her peaceful meadow. The scene almost makes you feel guilty for realizing that there are real reasons why Conan and other pulp fiction characters endure and outsell all but the very best of the more respectable stuff. The film, as my brother (another Howard fan, who named his dog after Conan) notes, also didn't shy away from the fact that most of the best pulp work was based on insecure power trips written by and for arrested adolescents with real issues.
Here is the difficulty Howard fans, such as my husband, who has written reams of what he has written, will have with the film. The story is told from his girlfriend Novalyn's perspective so a very important aspect of Howard's life, the specifics and depth of his stories, is largely skimmed over. The film sums up Howard's work by showing Price in a witty scene comparing her breast size with the bosoms of Howard's characters, and by showing the shock of people as he describes or acts out his work in public. There is some attempt at showing his desire to create the deeper more assertive female character Valeria in "Red Nails" but it is only a passing mention in conversation.
Howard is depicted as resting on the edge of insanity at times, which is believable considering his tragic end. He doesn't just write, he becomes his characters.
Price, an aspiring writer herself, hopes to learn from Howard but is put off by his erratic behavior and a more romantic interest in him that wishes he'd write nicer stories with more pleasant sympathetic characters. This void between them prevents the viewers ... or should I say Howard fans from knowing which stories he was working on at what time in the plot.
"The Devil in Iron" is the only one mentioned by name and others are hinted at including a boxing story, "Queen of the Black Coast," and his last masterpiece "Red Nails," which many fans regard as his finest story (or yarn as Robert calls them in the film). As my husband has read all of his books and many different comic adaptations he was able to pick out some of the works from his ramblings behind the typewriter, but his work is treated as a distracting sideshow by the film, in spite of the Price character's attempts to be non-judgmental and open-minded about his topics. The real story of the film is a battle between Price and Howard's mother for his attention.
This may be an accurate dramatization of Price's feelings but to a Howard fan its a little bit like treating Michaelangelo's David or the Sistine Chapel as incidental in the story of his life.
A talented artist will live their work, become their characters, the events will be in their heads almost as if it is reality. The work is hardly incidental, it is their life. The film dramatizes this but omits the actual stories.
To sum it up, "The Whole Wide World" is an engaging romance that will keep the attention of both men and women watching at home, but in the end may disappoint Howard fans (but not too much). My husband has stacked five of his Conan paperbacks by my desk for me to read, all as a result of making him watch this DVD with me.
By the way, if you are wondering about the title, it's based on Howard shouting to Novalyn that he wants to be the best writer "in the whole wide world."
Description of The Whole Wide World
In Texas in the 1930s, young school teacher Novalyne Price meets a handsome, eccentric and interesting young man named Robert Howard. He's a successful writer of the pulp stories of 'Conan the Barbarian'; she's an aspiring author. A friendship develops into a sort of courtship. Based on a memoir by Novalyne Price. Stars Academy Award® nominee Vincent D?Onofrio and Renée Zellweger (Chicago).Director Dan Ireland shows a talent for authenticity with this heartbreaking love story based on Novalyne Price's 1988 account of her prickly romance with 1930s pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. She was a schoolteacher in a small Texas town; he was the odd-ball writer who lived at home and created comic-book characters that were sexier and more violent than was considered decent by the locals. Renée Zellweger's performance is a gem of sweet unconventionality matched by Vincent D'Onofrio's powerful show of eccentricity and increasing mental illness. Though smart and feisty, this leaves us wishing the filmmakers had dug deeper into Howard's unusual relationship with his manipulative mother. --Rochelle O'Gorman
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