Review of The Whole Wide World (1996) by Robin W — 21 Sep 2008

Having 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.