The Whole Wide World: the last years of Robert E. Howard

A surprising movie, that I didn't expect to see for a long time, since when I searched for it, it was only available in Zone 1 DVDs and was not released in Zone 2. The Whole Wide World is a 1996 movie which is about the rocky relationship between the writer Robert Erwin Howard, creator among other characters of Conan the Barbarian, and Novalyn Price, professor and wannabe writer also, between 1933, the date they first met, and 1936, when Robert commited suicide. The story comes from the REH memoirs of Novalyn Price herself, that she wrote at the age of 76, based on the entries of her intimate journal at the time, and called One Who Walked Alone.

The movie is available in its entirety on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDZF-W7ctkU

Robert E. Howard is incarnate, and the word seems appropriate, by Vincent d'Onofrio, also producer of the movie. Novelyn Price is played by Renée Zellweger. This movie evidently represents something important for her, since seen years later, when she got the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, said in her acceptance speech that the thanked Vincent d'Onofrio for teaching her "how to act".

The film thus relates the difficult relationship between Novelyn Price and a Robert E. Howard whose character is rather complex, both fragile and exasperating, from excessive to touching. An awesome performance from Vincent d'Onofrio, who finds his perfect counterpoint in Renée Zellweger, who plays a woman very intrigued by this strange man, but who's not decided to stand everything he throws at her. The movie is treated in a very delicate way. It would have been easy for the director to turn Robert E. Howard's sick mother into the "villain" of the story based on her possessive behavior towards her son, but the obstacle is avoided with talent. Also, no real explanation will be given about Robert's shifting behavior, which according to many was deemed worthy of a psychiatric following.

But there's something the movie isn't, it's not a biography of Robert E. Howard, even if of course his most famous creation, Conan, is evoked, as well as his correspondance with H.P. Lovecraft, the other writer of renown of the "pulps" at the time.

In short, a movie to discover, a good movie, quite simply, devoid of cheap thrills, which just happens to feature my second favorite author (after Edgar Rice Burroughs of course!).