RULES DON’T APPLY – Review

Photo Credit: Francois Duhamel. Copyright © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved. 
RULES DON’T APPLY Motion Picture Copyright © 2016 Regency Entertainment (USA), Inc. and Monarchy Enterprises S.a.r.l. All rights reserved.

RULES DON’T APPLY opens as a boy-meets-girl tale set in classic Hollywood, an introduction suggesting a light-hearted romance, maybe even romantic comedy, which is how the film is being promoted. And RULES DON’T APPLY is that boy-meets-girl tale at first, until Howard Hughes shows up, played by writer/director Warren Beatty. Then the story takes a darker turn and switches from Hollywood romance with contemporary Woody Allen flavor to a Howard Hughes biopic. It is as if Beatty the actor hijacks Beatty the director’s film.

Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), a small-town beauty queen raised with a strong Baptist faith, arrives in Hollywood with a movie contract from Howard Hughes in hand and her mother (Annette Bening) in tow. Mother and daughter are met by a driver assigned by Hughes’ RKO studio, Frank Forbes ( Alden Ehrenreich). Frank is a fairly new employee and is religious too, but the young man is ambitious and hopes to persuade Hughes to back him in a real estate development. Frank is immediately smitten with Marla but it is hands off, as studio head Hughes strictly forbids any hint of dating or romance between his contract actresses and employees.

Beatty has not made a film in a while but clearly his Hollywood connections are intact. RULES DON’T APPLY boasts an impressive supporting cast, including Alec Baldwin, Candice Bergen, Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Oliver Platt and Martin Sheen. The stars fill a number of supporting roles, popping up unexpectedly, which offer adds a dash of humor and surprise.

Even the young leads alliterative names suggest an old Hollywood romantic comedy. Collins and Ehrenreich are quite appealing as the star-crossed lovers, who have more obstacles between them than just Hughes’ no fraternizing rules. In the love-struck Frank’s way are Marla’s ever-present mother, Frank’s fiancée back home, and their differing career ambitions. Their faith plays a role, but there is less about religion that you might expect.

It takes a while before Hughes makes his appearance and his absence is played for fun early in the film. But once Beatty’s Hughes is on screen, the film largely shifts its focus to him. The lightness and comic touches evaporate, and the film takes a darker turn. Director Beatty shifts from making a period Hollywood romance to a Howard Hughes biopic

This film picks up Hughes close to where THE AVIATOR leaves off. Hughes is still running his RKO movie studio and his aviation business, but he is already becoming reclusive and odd. But there is some overlap in time between the two plots, and Beatty can’t resist replaying some of the same incidents from Hughes life featured in THE AVIATOR.

At first writer/director Beatty plays Hughes as a slightly comic character but that shifts as Beatty digs into the part and the film becomes more about Hughes. Beatty’s performance as Hughes is no match for Leonardo DiCaprio’s in THE AVIATOR, and this film is no match for the excellent THE AVIATOR either, as a biopic or cinema. It feels like Beatty became distracted from his bittersweet romance tale, and couldn’t resist making it about Hughes once he bit into the role.

Warren Beatty has a reputation for inserting politics into his films since BULWORTH, and some might read in some commentary on Donald Trump based into the character’s name Marla Mabrey, which is awfully close to the name of Trump’s second wife Marla Maples, who raised a Southern Baptist. But political satire may not be the point of this film, although it is hard to figure exactly what Beatty intended with this visually pretty, star-studded mess of a film.

The film is a nostalgic visual delight, thanks to Director of Photography Caleb Deschanel. The film is lushly photographed, filled with a beautiful period look to the sets, costumes and cast. All that visual lushness also suggests Woody Allen, but RULES DON’T APPLY does not measure up to Allen’s own Hollywood romance film CAFE SOCIETY. At times, the film looks and feels so much like one of Woody Allen’s recent film, that it is a bit unsettling. But Beatty’s appearance on screen reminds us whose film this is.

It is hard to know what Beatty intended with this film but if the focus had remained on the two young leads instead of veering off towards Hughes, it might have been a more entertaining film, or at least a more focused one. Beatty’s long break from film-making perhaps played a role. The film looks beautiful, has a fine cast and the premise had potential for a charmingly romantic romp. Beatty retains skill as a director but it is hard to shake the feeling that the writer/director/star is torn between making a Woody Allen-style romance and a Howard Hughes biopic. Regardless, RULES DON’T APPLY feels like Beatty lost a chance to make a better film.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars