Rules Don’t Apply

What hap­pens when a per­fect­ly love­ly roman­tic com­e­dy gets hijacked by a mad­man? Rules Don’t Apply sug­gests that all sense of direc­tion, emo­tion, for­mal struc­ture and expec­ta­tion are sent spin­ning, like a com­pass nee­dle dri­ven mad by a mag­net­ic field. This is exact­ly what hap­pens about mid­way through War­ren Beatty’s nut­ty direc­to­r­i­al effort about two young love­birds orbit­ing the lav­ish world of bil­lion­aire mogul Howard Hugh­es in 1950s Hollywood.

Dri­ver Frank Forbes (Alden Ehren­re­ich) is instant­ly attract­ed to aspir­ing actress and naïve Vir­gin­ian Mar­la Mabrey (Lily Collins) when he picks her up from the air­port. She’s one of the many beau­ti­ful per­form­ers placed under con­tract by Hugh­es after win­ning a nation­wide tal­ent con­test. Accom­pa­nied by her devout moth­er (Annette Ben­ing), Mar­la quick­ly rec­i­p­ro­cates the ten­der flir­ta­tions and charm lobbed her way by Frank.

For much of their extend­ed meet-cute, Hugh­es (a hur­ri­cane in a suit played by Beat­ty him­self) stays in the shad­ows yam­mer­ing at his high rank­ing employ­ees and mak­ing petu­lant demands, more a vocal spec­tre than an actu­al phys­i­cal pres­ence. Yet the instant he takes an inter­est in Mar­la the film’s tra­jec­to­ry per­ma­nent­ly shifts, mir­ror­ing the fleet­ing whims of a rebel spir­it slow­ly suc­cumb­ing to insanity.

This jar­ring shift feels dar­ing and exper­i­men­tal. Hugh­es seduces Frank and Mar­la in dif­fer­ent ways, cre­at­ing a sce­nario where the joys of youth­ful romance are brand­ed with cyn­i­cism and sus­pi­cion. Char­ac­ters who once knew how to com­mu­ni­cate now find them­selves careen­ing down entire­ly dif­fer­ent wave­lengths, left aghast by their inabil­i­ty to con­nect. An edit­ing scheme that once crack­led with ener­getic short scenes sud­den­ly shows a streak of melan­choly that didn’t seem possible.

Hugh­es is a mas­ter of suck­ing the life out of every pos­si­bil­i­ty and using it to sus­tain his own rapid for­ward momen­tum. ​“You make an old guy coura­geous,” he tells Mar­la, a wolf care­ful­ly siz­ing up his lat­est lamb din­ner. Beat­ty gives the char­ac­ter an a able kind­ness one moment and a tyrant’s whine the next. Yet crip­pling inse­cu­ri­ty resides under­neath all of Hugh­es’ man­ic ener­gy. Only end­less gal­li­vant­i­ng and dan­ger­ous stunts can keep it at bay.

Like its cen­tral fig­ure, Rules Don’t Apply demands patience. It’s a prick­ly nar­ra­tive that cov­ers much the­mat­ic ground. Com­mu­nism, cap­i­tal­ism, dad­dy issues, birth con­trol, DNA, Los Ange­les land devel­op­ment, sex­ism and reli­gion all become crit­i­cal points of con­ver­sa­tion, or dis­trac­tion depend­ing on your per­spec­tive. This pat­tern reach­es crit­i­cal mass dur­ing the film’s fun­ni­est scene, when Hugh­es tells Frank the sto­ry behind Al Jolson’s ​‘You Ain’t Heard Noth­ing Yet’ quote dur­ing a reck­less plane ride.

Breath­less and messy, the film teeters on the edge of obliv­ion mul­ti­ple times, run­ning zigzag where oth­ers would have opt­ed for walk­ing a straight line. By embrac­ing such a sin­gu­lar sense of style, his­to­ry, and genre, Beat­ty ful­ly evokes Frank’s aw shucks cre­do, ​“There’s no harm in hav­ing high hopes.” Rules Don’t Apply is an odd­ly com­pelling and mad­cap reminder of all why such aspi­ra­tions should nev­er grow out of fashion.