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The Whole Wide World Customer Reviews (13 - 15 of 32 Reviews)

THE VAGARIES OF GENIUS
Stumbled on this heartwarming gem of a movie by accident and was pleasantly surprised. A simple yet moving tale of true love.

Based on the memoirs of Novalyn Price, veers around her relationship with the creator of "Conan The Barbarian" and "Kull The COnqueror", Bob Howard, who committed suicide. The period is 1930s, location: small-town Texas. Novalyne is a school teacher who wishes to be a published writer, and Howard is already established as a pulp fiction maverick. Both are in their late 20's.

As such, you'd think that's a weak scaffolding to lay a spectacular movie on, but the story tiptoes at a very good pace. The script is honest and addictive, and the chemistry between the two protags has that elusive, seductive charm of lovers without being overly somatic.

If you think you have seen Zellweger's true class as an actress from Bridget Jones or One True Thing, you haven't seen nothin' yet! The lady is marvellous. D'Onofrio does a fabulous job of being the creative mess of a story writer.

What I relished most, apart from the beautiful potrayal of love, was an unspoken grief of being an outlier in society -- the kind of palpable but overt ostracism that "geniuses" face simply by virtue of being extraordinary.

Required viewing for the romantics, and some delectable worthy escapism for others.

An unconventional but captivating love story
I find most love stories in film to be overly sappy so I wasn't expecting much. I've also never been able to get into Conan the Barbarian. The character has never been my cup of tea. But I decided to watch The Whole Wide World when it came on televison one day.

Wow. Five minutes into this movie, I was totally drawn in. Director Dan Ireland takes what could have been a wimpy story about unrequited love and breathes life into it by infusing the characters with color and feeling. Until watching this film, I never had a desire to see Texas but Ireland makes it seem so breathtaking, I may have to take a trip.

Thru their acting, Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onafrio convince us that these characters are real. We feel Novalyne's frustration with Bob but still understand why he appeals to her. Her intelligence and sassiness for the times obviously drew him to her. Both actors make the story of unrequited love come to life. In a total contrast from his better known Men In Black character, D'Onafrio shows his range. And in one of her earliest lead roles, Zellweger displays an acting talent that has not always been apparent in her latter movies.

This underrated gem is a real find. I hope it comes out on DVD.

Where's the rest of this film? 18 Minutes are missing!
According to the Internet Movie database, the film that this DVD purports to show is 111 minutes long. According to the "technical information" on the left, however, this DVD is only 93 minutes long. What happened to the remaining 18 minutes of this film? This kind of truncation of a good film is as annoying as the dropping of the key final scene in the DVD of "The Big Easy." Columbia Tristar should know better than to offer only about 7/8ths of a film -- particularly a film as good as this one -- and try to pass it off as the whole thing. Because this film is otherwise excellent, it should be shown complete, and I will refrain from buying this truncated version until Columbia Tristar issues it complete.

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