Themes: Unlikely Friendships, Tortured Genius, Writer's Life
Main Cast: Vincent D'Onofrio, Renée Zellweger, Ann Wedgeworth, Harve Presnell, Benjamin Mouton
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
A touching and unusual love story, The Whole Wide World was based on a memoir by Novalyne Price Ellis, in which she recalled her brief romance with Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian and one of the finest and most prolific pulp writers of his day. In 1933, Novalyne Price (Renee Zellweger) is a pretty but shy Texas schoolteacher who would like to be a writer some day. A friend offers to introduce her to Howard (Vincent D'Onofrio), who writes broad, bold yarns about superhuman heroes and damsels in distress and has little patience for writers of more pretentious fiction. Novalyne likes Howard and he seems to like her, but she finds him a hard man to deal with. He lives in the world of his stories, and he devotes as much time as possible to his bedridden mother, which leaves him little time to pursue a romance. But when Howard discovers that another man has been courting Novalyne, he's heartbroken -- even if they didn't have a conventional romance, he felt there was a special emotional bond between them, and he hates to see it thrown away. Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio both deliver fine performances and are a believable (if unconventional) romantic couple; D'Onofrio also co-produced. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Laurel Smith - Casting, Benjamin Mouton - Co-producer, Michael Scott Myers - Co-producer, Robert Strauss - Co-producer, Gail McMullen - Costume Designer, Jonathan A. Winfrey - First Assistant Director, Marshall Crosby - First Assistant Director, Dan Ireland - Director, Luis Colina - Editor, Jill Silverthorne - Line Producer, Hans Zimmer - Composer (Music Score), Harry Gregson-Williams - Composer (Music Score), John Frick - Production Designer, Claudio Rocha - Cinematographer, Vincent D'Onofrio - Producer, Dan Ireland - Producer, Donald Kushner - Producer, Peter Locke - Producer, Kevin Reidy - Producer, Carl-Jan Colpaert - Producer, Terri L. Wright - Set Designer, Ken Segal - Sound/Sound Designer, Michael Scott Myers - Screenwriter, Novalyne Price Ellis - Book Author
The film was adapted by Michael Scott Myers from Ellis's memoirs, One Who Walked Alone and Day of the Stranger: Further Memories of Robert E. Howard. The film was directed by Dan Ireland.
In 1933 Texas school teacher and aspiring writer Novalyne Price is introduced by friends to pulp fiction writer Robert E. Howard. A relationship soon develops between the two but it is doomed by personality conflicts and life events, such as the terminal illness of Howard's mother.
