The Whole Wide World
Director: | Dan Ireland |
Writer: | Michael Scott Myers |
Director of Photography: | Claudio Rocha |
Editor: | Luis Colina |
Music: | Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams |
Production Designer: | John Frick |
Producers: | Carl-Jan Colpaert, Kevin Reidy, Dan Ireland and Vincent D'Onofrio |
Sony Pictures Classics; PG; 105 minutes | |
Release: | 12/96 |
Cast: | Vincent D'Onofrio, Renee Zellweger and Ann Wedgeworth |
Based on the memoir One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price Ellis |
It's refreshing to see a movie about an intelligent couple that engages in thoughtful conversation about meaningful things. Set in 1930s Texas, The Whole Wide World examines the troubled relationship between a pulp-fiction writer, Robert E. Howard (D'Onofrio), and an aspiring writer, Novalyne Price (Zellweger). Most of their troubles lie in Howard's psychological problems. He lives with his parents and is servile to his ill mother (Wedgeworth). He's not comfortable with his dependent devotion to her and often erupts in fierce tantrums. Howard finds an escape in his erotic adventure stories. Though he has serious problems, the film studies writers and writing through him, exposing a tormented character who elicits both sympathy and admiration.