Movie Review—Rules Don’t Apply

by Peter J. O’Connell                                        

Rules Don’t Apply. Released: Nov. 2016. Runtime: 126 mins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual material, including brief strong language, thematic elements, and drug references.

Rules Don’t Apply, directed and co-written by and co-starring Warren Beatty, is a quirky mix of romcom and biopic. In 1958 Hollywood, tycoon Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty) maintains some 30 young aspiring actresses in homes across the area, awaiting promised screen tests and acting assignments. One such aspirant is Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a Baptist beauty queen from Virginia. Marla is chauffeured around the area by Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich).

Though Frank has been told that drivers are strictly forbidden by Howard Hughes to have any personal relationship with the contract actresses, the inevitable happens, and Frank and Marla fall in love. Hughes does not realize that Frank and Marla have a budding relationship. He elevates Frank to an important position in his organization and becomes entranced by and sexually attracted to Lily.

At this point the movie increasingly focuses on Hughes’ increasingly bizarre behavior. Eccentric for years, he is rapidly descending into deep dementia. Charismatically performed by Beatty, some of the behavior is hilarious, some very sad. Although the portrayal of Hughes’ personality apparently is accurate, the movie wildly scrambles the actual chronology of events in his life. Also, a host of noted actors and actresses play small parts in the film, perhaps as favors to Beatty. One such is Alec Baldwin, who also appeared (as another character) in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator (2004), about Hughes’ life before the 1950s, with Hughes played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

The focus of the middle part of Rules Don’t Apply on Hughes, who has disrupted the relationship of Marla and Frank, makes the movie’s return to the attractive young couple choppy going in terms of both plot twists and cinematic editing. Audience members will have to decide whether or not the appeal of Ehrenreich and Collins and the charisma of Beatty make the film’s bumpy ride worthwhile.

“Footnotes” to the film: (1) Alden Ehrenreich first attracted attention in another film about Hollywood in the 1950s, the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016). (2) Howard Hughes was memorably portrayed by Jason Robards in Melvin and Howard (1980), for which Robards received an Oscar nomination, and by Tommy Lee Jones in the two-part made-for-TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977).