Rules Truly Don’t Apply To This Flop Of A Film

Directed, co-produced, and written by 60s star Warren Beatty, Rules Don’t Apply has been in development for 40 years, making its $600,000 box office (compared to a $25 million budget) disappointing. Like its box office performance, the movie is also a flop, bumbling from start to finish with malformed character arcs, a wasted supporting cast and an indecisive focus as to what it wants to accomplish.

Rules Don’t Apply is a love story about aspiring songwriter Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins) and limousine driver Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who fall in love despite their mutual employer, Howard Hughes’ (Warren Beatty), insistence that no employees may have a relationship with one another.

Don’t worry if you forget that rule, Hughes and the rest of the cast will repeat it multiple times throughout the movie. Beatty mistakes repetition for character development and plot. Rather than show you how eccentric or brilliant Howard Hughes is, he’ll instead have every character talking about how great Howard Hughes is, hoping that, by some sort of cinematic osmosis, the audience will feel the same way.

Talking about characters, Rules Don’t Apply tries to be both a portrait of Howard Hughes and a romantic comedy, failing at both due to the weakness of its cast. Ehrenreich is the worst offender, his clumsiness and awkwardness unconvincing as he mumbles his lines through a layer of monotone.

Collins fares better, excelling at playing off lighthearted scenes but failing to provoke any emotional reaction from the audience during her private moments. Her inability to be convincing during pivotal scenes and Ehrenreich’s anti-charisma cause their relationship to be based on spontaneous combustion rather than chemistry. Beatty is Collins’ foil. He excels at portraying Hughes at his most intimate (especially when sharing the screen with Collins) but fails to convey Hughes’ mystique or power.

Do not be fooled by Rules Don’t Apply’s cast of supporting actors. Stars like Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, and Annette Bening occupy bit parts, saying their few lines of dialogue and disappearing from the movie. Matthew Broderick, who plays veteran limousine driver Levar Mathis, is the only supporting character of importance. However, Broderick’s performance is unremarkable, and his character leaves no real impact on the plot.

Besides the major flaws of the characters, the movie suffers from rapid editing. Most of the scenes within the first 30 minutes consist of only a few lines of dialogue, and make large leaps through time, leaving the viewer fatigued and disinterested. The flow of the movie is made worse by the script, which boasts such gems as “…maybe your wealth is not the best thing for your health.”

During the film, hiding in a bungalow, Howard Hughes, talking to business associates over the telephone, states that, “There is no reason for us to meet.” Similarly, there is no reason to watch this movie. Moviegoers looking for a romantic-comedy will find little to laugh about, and those interested in a “The Aviator” style biopic will be left disinterested by Beatty’s performance. Contrary to the title, the rules of clear narrative, strong character development, and judicious editing should apply to Rules Don’t Apply.