Rules Don’t Apply (2016)

Review

127min

Genre:       Comedy, Drama, Romance

Director:    Warren Beatty

Cast:         Lily Collins, Alden Ehrenreich, Warren Beatty…and more

Writers:     Warren Beatty and Bo Goldman

-Synopsis-

Warren Beatty returns to the director’s chair after almost 20 years, while also writing and starring in this ‘Golden Age Hollywood’ comedy/drama about the romance which blossoms between two wide-eyed youngsters, among the myriad of disparate people struggling to cope with the whims of their eccentric and reclusive Tinseltown billionaire boss, on whom  they all depend.

There’s certainly been no shortage of films revolving around or set during the classical era of American cinema (or the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood)—the period from the artform’s commercial inception up to the early 1960s—most recently seen in the Coen Brothers’ 2016 comedy farce ‘Hail, Caesar!’. We’ve also seen the legendary Howard Hughes depicted or referenced in film before, most notably in Martin Scorsese’s masterful 2004 portrait of an enigma ‘The Aviator’—but now another Hollywood legend puts his spin on Hughes’s stranger-than-fiction later years, while injecting a fictional story of young love in the middle of it with this snappily dressed period dramedy.

Lily Collins stars as naive small-town girl and aspiring actress ‘Marla Mabrey’, brought to Hollywood by Hughes (Warren Beatty) to be one of his contracts starlets, despite the fact that like most people in his employ she rarely ever sees him. Her path crosses with one of Hughes’s many drivers ‘Frank Forbes’ (Alden Ehrenreich), an ambitious and business minded young man whose life becomes complicated when he falls for Marla—a major no-no for a Hughes employee—while being drawn deeper into the bizarre idiosyncrasies and demands of an ageing Howard Hughes. Leaving both hopeful youngsters struggling to balance their personal desires with their professional aspirations, and having to cope with the peculiar behaviour of a boss whose impulses dominate the lives of those around him.

Set between 1959 and 1964 in Hollywood, Las Vegas and all the far-flung places Hughes’s wings would take him, ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ is not—as the film’s makers stress—the life story of this singular man, but instead a fictional characterisation based on the real and scarcely believable facts about him, and more importantly the story of young love and a message of standing out from the crowd which surrounds him. But the narrative sure does revolve around Beatty’s performance as the colossal figure—as the world seemed to revolve around Hughes—and ultimately it’s the only thing which gives the film any life, or holds any interest.

As you might expect, ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ is an expertly crafted film with vivid period visuals, with Beatty taking full advantage of excellent production designs and some wonderfully re-created threads from the period, all expertly captured by veteran cinematographer—and father of famous actresses—Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff, The Passion of the Christ).

Thanks to Beatty’s huge influence on the industry, the film is blessed with an impressive supporting cast of modern greats; from Martin Sheen to Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen to Oliver Platt, as well as Matthew Broderick and of course the director’s supremely talented wife Annette Bening—all delivering solid performances in minor parts. Meanwhile the two young leads both impress in their roles, with Ehrenreich particularly exuding a suaver side of the old Hollywood charm we saw from him in ‘Hail, Caesar!’—but try as the movie might to convince that this is a story of two young mould-breakers, for whom the rules of Hollywood (and life) don’t apply, it’s all just an elaborate and slightly underwhelming romantic contrivance which ultimately circles back to Howard Hughes.

‘Rules Don’t Apply’ is set during the later years of Hughes’s life and with his mental wellbeing deteriorating, resulting in increasingly bizarre behaviour—compounded by his position which surrounded him with ‘yes men’ feeding his eccentricities—and caused mainly by his extreme OCD plus self-medication for chronic pain, which the film barely addresses. However Beatty goes for a more farcical and strangely endearing, yet still slightly tragic interpretation of this iconic industrialist, aviator and Hollywood studio boss—which is often quirky and occasionally hilarious enough to feel like a Mel Brooks version of an eccentric business tyrant . . . but no more peculiar than the real story.

Much like Hughes’s behaviour and his mind, ‘Rules Don’t Apply’ is all over the place, which gives the film a wacky and unpredictable quality but it can’t gloss over the underdeveloped love story at the heart of a movie which struggles to decide what it actually is. Ultimately Beatty’s return as filmmaker-in-chief has its quirks and enough to latch onto, while meticulously crafted of course, but is fatally underwhelmed by the narrative balance and its central romance, which makes us think perhaps a farcical ‘Bulwoth’-style fictional Hughes biopic might have been the better way to go.

The Bottom Line . . .

Warren Beatty’s return as a fully-fledged filmmaker is a well crafted and immaculately dressed mixed bag; quirky and entertaining as a farcical and unconventional take on the later life of an iconic American enigma, but let down by its attempt at legitimate drama and the unconvincing central story of young love—leaving a slightly underwhelming romantic Hollywood attempt at a story of individuality in a prescribed world.

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

The Aviator (2004)

Martin Scorsese directs this Oscar-winning biopic and ode to iconic and hugely influential American industrialist, movie mogul and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes—from the height of his career as a capitalist titan to his complicated personal life, and the effect of his increasingly bizarre idiosyncrasies on those around him . . . and himself.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett and Kate Beckinsale among others.

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