Robert E. Howard was a titan of pulp. Even now, the mention of his name, or the more well-known name of Conan, can summon up some of the deepest prejudices ingrained in us by the English faculty. Granted, some of the eye-rolling is deserved. But whatever your estimation of the early twentieth century’s pulp literature, Howard is an intriguing figure. If his writing will never class him among greats like Hemingway, his suicide might.
Despite the drama of his death, Howard is not the most attractive figure for a biographical film. He was a loner, something of a Boo Radley, with a strange attachment to his ailing mother. He wrote cheesy, oversexed (for the time) fantasy stories. And when his mother died, he shot himself. Freud would have liked it, but this isn’t exactly ready-made Hollywood material. Although there’s some potential for an artful approach. Unfortunately, Dan Ireland’s The Whole Wide World never executes well enough to overcome the story’s inherent weakness.
The supposed romance between Novalyne Price (Renée Zellweger) and Bob Howard (Vincent D’Onofrio) supplies just enough tension to keep the movie limping on. Not unlike The Remains of the Day, that tension comes largely as the audience agonizes over Bob’s inability to give himself up to love. It also comes as Novalyne wrestles with Bob’s eccentricity. At times it’s charming. At first she doesn’t care what the townspeople think of Bob, and of her for associating with him. But his is an oddness that will not be domesticated.
This is suggested by a wolf Novalyne encounters when Bob takes her on one of many forays into the Texas countryside, where landscapes are expansive, if not particularly inspiring. The wolf regards her momentarily. It’s a dangerous creature, but also fascinating. When she turns her back for a moment, it leaves her suddenly.
The memoir Price later wrote is the backbone of this story, and ultimately she becomes the movie’s protagonist. It’s simply too hard to identify with Howard. He’s too unusual. Zellweger does fairly well in the role. She has both the curiosity and the spunk Novalyne would need to be interested in Bob and to interest him. Her counterpart, D’Onofrio, isn’t an actor. He’s a spectacle. When I realized his name was on the DVD cover I almost took it straight back to Blockbuster. Thankfully, he’s somewhat tamer than his Law & Order persona. Still, he pushes the character of Howard over the top. I’ll admit that a melodramatic reading is appropriate when Howard is quoting from his stories. At these points, where we see Howard through glimpses of his own writing, the movie captivates. But maintaining the melodrama in the character’s every aspect makes him difficult to take seriously, much less connect with.
Novalyne’s motivation for first seeking out Howard is to get some tips on her own writing. It’s telling that Bob never really gives her any useful advice. Perhaps that’s as Price remembers it in her memoir. I think it also reflects on Ireland’s inability to tell this story. At one point Howard describes one of his heroes as a morose, ungainly, misfit among men. He’s also talking about himself, to Novalyne’s consternation. It’s an apt way to describe this movie. Nothing fits right, and even with my interest in Robert E. Howard I was never drawn in. Bob writes his stories but never quite lives his life. The Whole Wide World is also a tragedy of unfulfilled potential. Portraits are painted, scenes are staged, but it never quite becomes a film.
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