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Plot:
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, t...( read more 
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:September 22, 2008Having been born in '88, I feel like I missed out on a whole lot of fun. Roger Ebert explains with great enthusiasm in his review of "The Whole Wide World" how he would race home on his bicycle with a box of pulp magazines and treasure each moment of blood-curdling sexist goodness. As a product of the 90's - I didn't get to know much outside of pop music, the internet, and cable television. I completely agree with the arguments that an uprise in technology neuters the imagination. That's the appeal of an author like Robert E. Howard. One that lives in his own world and plays by his own rules. Without ever venturing far from his quiet home in Texas, he was able to tell epic tales of heroic conquests. While he certainly can be perceived as a "strange" individual - no one with a soul couldn't admire the way he lived his life.
"The Whole Wide World" tells the story of Robert E. Howard - an author from the 30's who wrote hundreds of short stories and pulp heroes, most notably Conan the Barbarian. After Arnold Scwarzenegger wielded the giant sword as the ultimate icon of Hollywood masculinity, Howard's work had a bit of a resurgence. Unfortunately, this newfound appreciation for Howard's work wasn't all welcome. Rumors had spread that Howard was a bad guy, an outcast, and a freak. Novalyn Price Ellis, a woman who'd grown close to Howard, published her memoirs entitled "One Who Walked Alone" in effort to debunk these uncomplimentary rumors and tell the story of Howard as she knew him.
Vincent D'Onofrio (of "Full Metal Jacket") depicts Robert E. Howard was a charming, yet fairly "clueless" man. He is romantically pursued by an aspiring writer, Novalyn (Renee Zellweger), although he's quite oblivious about the situation. He loves her, and he knows she loves him, but he doesn't know exactly what to do. Zellweger's performance is incredibly strong as not only a gentle and idealized beauty, but a strong-willed woman. She shows her displeasure when Robert shows up at her house underdressed, and eventually almost gives up with her romantic pursuits following constant frustrations. Meanwhile, Robert acts as a nurse to his sick and loving mother.
"The Whole Wide World" is fascinating at times, but just as dull as it is interesting at other moments. It's incredibly light entertainment and doesn't try to be much more than that. The director, Dan Ireland, is confident with the skill of his lead actors, and only occasionally does something out of the ordinary. There are some incredibly powerful scenes in which we're inside the imagination of Robert - the camera tight on his face as his eyes buzz around the page with the sound of swords clanking in the background. These are effective because they're used so sparingly.
Parts of this film is comparable to Brad Anderson's "Happy Accidents" - which also stars Vincent D'Onofrio as a man who doesn't exactly meet the typical standards of "normalcy". D'Onofrio is a great outcast because he can be as weird as he possibly can be while still looking like a teddy bear. Even prior to his killing spree in "Full Metal Jacket" he was quite the irresistible character. Renee Zellweger also had a great performance, although she certainly had limited material to work with. This script only scraped the surface of where another writer/director could take it.
I guess my main problem with the film was that I never bought into the chemistry between Robert and Novalyn. I felt as though he was too oblivious about everything outside of his imagination to love her, and that she was too straight-laced to fall for him. While it's a true story and it does have some extraordinarily romantic moments - I never invested heavily into the characters of the relationship. It seemed to elementary, idealized, and shallow. The film flowed along like a breeze and it was extremely easy to watch, but that being said it didn't exactly feel like it was as good as the sum of it's parts.
"The Whole Wide World" is worth seeing if only because it tells the story of a fascinating and irresistibly charming man. That being said, however, I feel that there is a masterpiece in this story - and this simply wasn't it. -
MCT:July 11, 2008Set in the early 1930s, "The Whole Wide World" is a biopic about the relationship between Novalyne Price and pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard, mostly famous for creating the character of Conan the Cimmerian. Based on the autobiographical account published by Price decades after the events under the title "One Who Walked Alone", and subject to the usual Hollywood distortions (as acknowledged in the end titles themselves), it may not be entirely factual, and probably gives too negative an image of Howard. Indeed, having read his latest biography in the two days after viewing the film, I found Howard to be a much more humourous, self-confident, intellectual and stable man than the film suggests (making him look rather like an often unpleasant, borderline psychopathic half moron), and I believe that Price herself was less innocent than she seems to admit.
Factual errors in the movie include a false depiction of the meeting between Howard and H. P. Lovecraft (the latter did not phone Howard?s mum, it was Howard who wrote to him, via their publisher, years before he met Price) ; and the myth of the "last letter" found on the typewriter, when in fact it was an extract from a poem found in Howard?s wallet that may not have had anything to do with his death.
That said, "The Whole Wide World" is much more faithful to the facts than most Hollywood movies : greater liberties were taken by the authors of "Finding Neverland" or "Good Night and Good Luck", for instance. And whatever the distortions, it succeeds entirely as a melodramatic romance movie, and is in the same league, in my opinion, as "Shadowlands." Even though I knew how it would end ? I have known of Howard?s death ever since high school ? it made me cry as the end titles rolled on. I felt sad for the waste, sad maybe that Howard could not meet a woman that could truly share his inner life, but only one who was close enough to him to make him mistake her for his soul mate, and believe that he would never find anything better to fill the void in his heart.
I loved the film enough to read the biography by Mark Finn over the next two days, and the latter book made me order two volumes of Howard?s fiction and the standard biography of Lovecraft by S. T. Joshi. -
MCT:July 6, 2008Grab your hankies. Beautiful movie! The book shed just a little more light on the relationship but still it's a wonderful movie NO ONE else but Vincent could've done Robert Howard justice
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MCT:January 15, 2008This movie is based on the book One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis. The story recounts her friendship and romance with Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonya. The film, directed by Dan Ireland, stars Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio with incredible cinematography by Claudio Rocha. Both Zellweger and D'Onofrio turn in amazing performances. I personally think this is one of the most romantic and heartbreaking stories I've ever seen. This movie can always make me cry buckets.
Best quote: To make life worth living a man or woman has to have a great love or a great cause... I have neither. -
MCT:August 9, 2007
I don't think I'll ever tire of this movie. It's incredibly entertaining and the leading actors totally got the headstrong romantic conflict that so many give a try and fail miserably
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MCT:June 14, 2007
I loved this film! I definitely recommend it! Not many people have heard of it but it has great acting performances by D'Onofrio and Zellweger. It also made me break out the kleenix box a few times due to there being sad moments in the story. Definitely a must see for film lovers.
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MCT:May 23, 2007
This cast is amazingly beautiful. Vincent's best film. Very real, very romantic. The story will make you tear up.
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MCT:May 17, 2007Novalyn Price must have thought her relationship with Robert E. Howard (the man who brought us the character Conan the Barbarian) was interesting enough to write her memoirs over 40 years after his death. And, someone must have thought it was interesting enough to make a film about. And, someone must have done a fine job of selling what an interesting story it was to get Renee Zellwegger and Vincent D'Onofrio on board.
Sadly, something MUST have gotten lost in the translation somewhere along the way because, I found very little of interest in the film. I contemplated turning it off after an hour. It doesn't rank high enough to go on my 'Movies so Bad it HURTS' list...but, it's a hell of a long way from something I'd recommend either. -
MCT:May 13, 2007
Once again, D'Onofrio melts my heart as the moody, semi-crazy literary artist Robert E. Howard. Zellgeger holds her own as a independent female who is alternately charmed and insulted in her relationship with him.
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MCT:January 5, 2007
Languidly shot and paced, but never dull. A semi-unrequited love story in which Vincent D'Onofrio proves to be one of the hottest men in Hollywood and you're reminded of a time when Renee Zellweger was an actual actress, not a star. Beautiful and you have to go out now and watch it, okay?
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