THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1996 Ben Hoffman
Novalyne Price Ellis is now 88-years-old. The film is based on her book, ONE WHO WALKED ALONE, a remembrance of Robert E Howard whom she loved way back in the 1930s. Howard was the very eccentric author of the weird stories of CONAN, THE BARBARIAN. As he was the first to unreservedly admit, he was "the best writer in the whole wide world."
The film is a precious gem from its opening scene of Novalyne (Renee Zellweger) on the porch of her home in rural Texas to the fadeout at the end that lingers lovingly on her face. Vincent D'Onofrio, who plays Howard, transports us into another world, that of the writer who wanted no ties of any kind. As Howard sits at his typewriter, he verbalizes and furiously enacts the weird and ferocious Conan stories.
When Novalyne meets him it is love at first sight but his love is not the same as hers. Where she yearns for "normal" love, he feels marriage is binding, that it will restrict, and he will have no part of it. Like Robert, she too is a writer with the big difference that she is unpublished. Robert, a bear of a man and outspoken, tells her that her stories are laughable. He explains that the people in her town about whom she writes are unreal because they bear no resemblance to what the people are really like . . . and he despises all of them.
Robert's father (Harve Presnell) is a doctor. His sickly mother (Anne Wedgeworth) makes the most of her illnesses thus keeping her extremely devoted son close to her to the point where it borders on a sickness with Robert washing her, carrying her and always hovering over her. As he explains to Novalyne, his mother was the first to recognize his genius and he feels indebted.
D'Onofrio's portrayal of Howard is in the Oscar nomination class. Zellweger, too, is perfection, reminding me of a younger Steenburgen. The music of Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer is right on target and never obtrusive; Claudio Rocha's photography brings us right into agricultural Texas; the film's pace is exactly right. What more could you ask for? Look for a nomination for Best Film of the year.
Directed by Dan Ireland Rating 4 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb 3 Bytes = Too good to miss 2 Bytes = Average 1 Byte = Save your money
Ben Hoffman
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews