This was the movie that brought Warren Beatty out of his own self-imposed retirement playing Howard Hughes at much the same advanced age as Beatty was at the time. There are two plots going on in "Rules Don't Apply", one involving Hughes' attempts at keeping TWA in the air, so to speak, and the other involving Lily Collins as a starlet who has come to Hollywood to audition for Hughes and who starts up an on-again, off-again romance with one of Hughes' drivers, (Alden Ehrenreich).
It might have looked like a very good idea at the script stage, (Beatty not only stars and directs but co-wrote the original story with Bo Goldman as well as writing the screenplay), and yet the film's a mess, a very charming mess I admit but a mess nevertheless. Beatty was still able to convince an all-star cast to contribute cameos including Mrs. Beatty herself as Collin's uptight mother and the film itself, (set in the years 1959 and 1964), looks great.
It flopped, of course, not being rom-com enough to appeal to contemporary rom-com audiences and not being enough of a biopic or movie about the movies to appeal to film aficionados and yet it is a very difficult film to dislike. There are some really fine sequences here and Ehrenreich displays real star quality, (I'm still waiting for him to break through into the big time). Maybe one day it will be rediscovered as a cult movie and I'm certainly looking forward to revisiting it.
No comments:
Post a Comment