THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Sony Classics) Starring: Vincent D'Onofrio, Renee Zellweger, Ann Wedgeworth, Harve Presnell. Screenplay: Michael Scott Myers, based on the memoir by Novalyne Price Ellis. Producers: Kevin Reidy, Carl-Jan Colpeurt, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dan Ireland. Director: Dan Ireland. MPAA Rating: PG (plentiful mild profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 105 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Bio-pics have been a Hollywood staple about as long as there has been a Hollywood, but recently an entire sub-genre seems to have popped up based on the tragic romances of real-life figures. Beethoven in IMMORTAL BELOVED, Dora Carrington in CARRINGTON, C. S. Lewis in SHADOWLANDS, Picasso in SURVIVING PICASSO and Richard Feynman in INFINITY all have been given solemn film treatments which play the "tortured/emotionally repressed artist" card for all they are worth. Some of these films worked and some did not, but many of them inspired the question of whether we would care all that much about the people involved if one or both of them were not famous. THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD is a polite, well-acted drama which covers the same ground several times over in an hour and forty-five minutes.
THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD opens in west Texas in 1933, where a young student and part-time school teacher named Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger) meets Robert E. "Bob" Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio), a friend of her then-boyfriend. Bob is a successful writer of adventure tales for pulp magazines -- many featuring a creation named Conan the Barbarian -- and Novalyne's own aspirations toward being a writer lead her to turn to Bob for advice. The two become friends and frequent companions, but Bob has difficulty returning Novalyne's affections as he focuses on his writing and caring for his sickly mother (Ann Wedgeworth). Over the course of two years, Novalyne and Bob share an evolving relationship in which Novalyne is one of the only people allowed inside Bob's tangled emotions.
THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD manages to stay fairly involving for much of its running time largely thanks to the strong performances of the two leads. Vincent D'Onofrio makes Bob Howard a complicated mix of Texas bluster and buried pain, a fellow who lacks the emotional vocabulary to respond to Novalyne's feelings. Director Dan Ireland captures him vividly as he describes Conan's world to Novalyne, and in his verbal accompaniment to his own composition; Howard's fantasy world becomes his great escape from his own life. Renee Zellweger does nice work with a tough part, a woman who is attracted to the teller of tall tales then finds herself unable to "civilize" him. She walks a fine line between anachronistic liberation and discomfiting masochism, yet generally finds the right note of earnest frustration. Together Zellweger and D'Onofrio make an intriguing pair, a couple of kindred spirits who nevertheless are quite obviously wrong for each other.
Therein lies THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD's fundamental flaw as a romantic drama: it is never really possible to root for the protagonists to end up together. Michael Scott Myers' script is based on an autobiographical memoir by Novalyne Price Ellis, who clearly was deeply affected by her friendship with Bob Howard. As honestly felt as it might be, however, her story lacks a narrative push. Novalyne and Bob spend a lot of time together, argue over philosophical differences, then make up; this process occurs once then repeats three or four times. The interaction between the two is pleasantly interesting, but it isn't enough to sustain a story in which neither character ends up changing very much. The sad fact is that the story might have been simply Novalyne's attempt to work through some guilt issues (Howard committed suicide in 1935), and THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD is affectionate without being compelling. When Novalyne pronounces late in the film that she was happy to have known Bob Howard, you don't doubt her sincerity. You just wonder why that sentiment warranted a feature film.
The only time THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD flirts with truly intriguing material is when it focuses on Bob's relationship with his mother, played with pallid possessiveness by Ann Wedgeworth. There is an intense Oedipal sub-text to Bob's obsessive need to care for his mother, and a scene in which he changes her sweat-soaked nightgown after a feverish night is both subtle and daring. There is so much more going on in that relationship than in the one between Bob and Novalyne that you wish Ireland or Myers had recognized it. But this is Novalyne's story, so she is always front and center, static though she might be. Don't expect a love story in THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD. At most it is a "like" story, and might have been ignored politely if one of the two likers had not created Conan the Barbarian.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 pulp afflictions: 5.
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