After 15 years, Beatty returns to cinema in ‘Rules Don’t Apply’

Everyone is clearly here to work with the great Warren Beatty, but by the film’s end one has to wonder what he was trying to say beyond paying tribute to a legend.

Warren Beatty doesn’t want us to regard “Rules Don’t Apply”, in which he stars as Howard Hughes, as a Howard Hughes film. So, though the two young characters are fictional and events in Hughes’ life are either condensed (from about 20 years down to five) or fabricated, Rules Don’t Apply is essentially a biopic, albeit the strangest one since I’m Not There. It’s been rattling around in the Hollywood legend’s brain for maybe a decade or two before that, and the resulting movie is a feast of everything Warren: wise, confused, complicated, astute about cultural history, overindulgent, politically and sexually incorrect and an old school, high-quality production of the sort we nearly never see anymore.

It apparently wasn’t just me that was impressed with the project, as Beatty got a smorgasbord of stars to sign on for tiny parts.

Collins’ delightful impertinence, which could be compared to Audrey Hepburn’s, keeps you on her side.

EHRENREICH: For me it was so much growing up and watching all these old movies forever that that was just in my DNA. If nothing else, Rules Don’t Apply is simply a case to be happy to see Warren Beatty return to cinema after fifteen years.

In Rules Don’t Apply, the legendary actor-producer-director has given us his first feature since 1998’s Bulworth, and like all his previous films, this one is tough to categorize. But then there’s the title of the movie.

Annette Bening: “Super fun for me”. She’s supposed to be sensible and self-respecting, unlike the other girls. That’s why it’s all the more a shame to watch her become drunkenly entangled with the increasingly erratic and manipulative Howard. Hughes puts Marla and her mother (Annette Bening) up in a gorgeous home in the hills and assigns them a personal driver, Frank (Alden Ehrenreich).

Joshua Terry is a freelance writer and photographer who appeared weekly on “The KJZZ Movie Show” from 2013 to 2016.

After a prologue set in 1964, along with an onscreen quote of warning from the late Hughes (“Never check an interesting fact”), the story jumps back to the Hollywood of 1958, notably about the same time Beatty first hit Tinseltown. Beatty’s long break from film-making perhaps played a role.

But was working for Warren like working for Howard?

“I always take a long time to finally begin a movie”, the 79-year-old said at the premiere. “He is incredibly perceptive about people”.

He’s very active in every aspect of the film-making process. “I want French vanilla!”

EHRENREICH: I didn’t know my mom was on the board. Warren challenges you beyond what you think you’re capable of. “He’s very direct and persistent, and that was very different for me”. He prattles haphazardly about financial snafus and TWA and screen tests and aeronautics, and yet he never quite seems demented to us.

“I’ve been very lucky that I’ve been able to do a lot of other things in this little thing called life”. “Lily is wonderful for the movie and the role because she has a strong character and a lot of sweetness and conviction, with fierce intelligence too”. But ultimately “Rules Don’t Apply” is a purely auteurist work that coalesces into an enveloping, if fictionalized, portrait of Howard Hughes – and of the man who made it. Regardless, RULES DON’T APPLY feels like Beatty lost a chance to make a better film.

“But also, regarding the women of the period, I had this idealized version of what women I really admired from that time went through”, she continues. It also risks their religious views. This is a picture Beatty has wanted to make for years, and if the movie isn’t the achievement it should be, it’s at least entertaining in fits and starts.