The movie is about a tycoon's relationships with a young starlet and her driver who fall in love with each other while the tycoon allows no one to have an intimate relationship with a contract actress.
Warren Beatty plays Howard Hughes with seductive charm, sneaky intelligence and buggy eccentricity. Sadly, Beatty as writer and director has chosen to make Hughes a supporting role, teasing a much deeper portrait..
Given his famously protracted deliberations, it is almost certainly the last film we will ever get from Beatty the auteur. It's a nice, warm, genial and embraceable farewell.
Beatty's vision of showbiz corruption is hardly novel, but as a writer and actor, he's created the most wistful and complex portrait of Hughes I've ever seen.
The central problem with "Rules Don't Apply," unfortunately, is the central romance. The characters don't appeal - the starlet has no particular spark, while the driver is a pushy go-getter.
Beatty has made a beautiful-to-look-at film making full cinematic use of its glamorous period setting. But despite having all the ingredients for a charming movie, like Howard Hughes, Rules Don't Apply's soul remains elusive.
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.
There are so many details to savour in this beautifully produced film that it's all the more regrettable that it doesn't quite coalesce into a satisfying whole.
If Rules Don't Apply had focused on just one of its two main storylines, it could have been solid. Instead, it's uneven, lurching between utterly charming and honestly boring.
If Rules Don't Apply is merely a nostalgic love letter to Beatty's early days as an actor in the years before 1961's Splendor in the Grass made him an international sex symbol, that's enough. Give it a whirl. You'll be time traveling with one of the best.
