FAQ

While the major events portrayed in the film actually occurred, the film takes several dramatic liberties and completely eliminates all scenes set in Ibiza, where Irving wrote much of his book in a farmhouse he owned there. The author described the film as "a historically cockeyed story" and decried the film's characterizations as inaccurate. He was unhappy with being portrayed as "desperate and humorless, a washed-up hack writer who lives in a conservative New York suburb." He observed, "The movie misses the point that the Howard Hughes hoax was a live-action adventure story concocted by two middle-aged hippie expat writers and a Swiss heiress. Edith, my then-wife, a woman of great zest, is portrayed as a dull hausfrau; and Nina van Pallandt, my Danish mistress, as barely one level above a New York hotel hooker. Dick Suskind, witty friend and co-conspirator, is offered to the public as a self-righteous, sweaty buffoon. The scenes that deal with Movie Clifford feuding with Movie Dick, getting him drunk and hiring a bargirl to seduce him, are totally fictional. The Hughes people mailing the package of files to me is also made up.