✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Cinema

Rules Don't Apply film review ★★★★★

21 Apr 17 – 21 Jun 17, Times vary

Rules Don't Apply is a sharper, smarter film than it first appears, and Warren Beatty steals the show as Howard Hughes

By CW Contributor on 20/4/2017

Rules Don't Apply – Lily Collins
Rules Don't Apply – Lily Collins
Rules Don't Apply film review 4 Rules Don't Apply film review Matthew Robinson
After taking the fall for the biggest Oscars screw-up in history, famously oversexed actor Warren Beatty has redeemed himself with this enjoyable non-rom-com, a semi-faux-biopic of legendarily oversexed director Howard Hughes. That’s if you believe he needs redeeming, of course – we still think Faye Dunaway is the one who so cruelly disappointed La La Land.


Like La La Land, Rules Don’t Apply is Tinseltown film – a movie about the movies, the people who want to be in them, and what they’re willing to do in order to ‘make it’. But whereas La La Land was a romantic film with a modern, wised-up surface, Rules Don’t Apply smuggles in some bitter truths about Hollywood (and sex) under its rose-tinted patina.



It’s 1958, and Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins, perky) is one of many wannabe actresses trying to become a star in Howard Hughes’ constellation. Each of these young women have been promised a screen test by the eccentric and mysterious billionaire, but none of them have met him. Waiting for an introduction, they live curated lives in Los Angeles, paddocked in gated houses and provided with drivers who are instructed to chaperone and spy on them.


Marla’s driver is Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich, hard to pronounce but easy on the eye), who’s also hoping to meet Hughes. Frank wants to ply Hughes with a real estate proposal, but this depends on him not falling for Marla – Hughes has forbidden his drivers to become romantically involved with the actresses they’re ferrying about. This is easier said than done, etc.


So far, so typical, and the promotional material has sold Rules Don’t Apply as exactly the period-set fluff-fest that the above précis suggests: the acronymic and handsomely-browed protagonists swooning under Hughes’ grandfatherly auspice. But Beatty has been a Hollywood stalwart – and sex symbol – for too long to make a film so naïve.



Alden Ehrenreich and Warren Beatty in Rules Don't Apply



Both Marla and Frank are church-going and virginal, and Beatty doesn’t hesitate to give them a full dose of disillusionment. His Howard Hughes is certainly more twinkle-eyed than Leonardo DiCaprio’s in The Aviator, and in some of the broadest moments his performance recalls The Simpsons’ take on the Hughes myth, but he’s also a brilliant and funny figure of patriarchal selfishness. Rather than being the best thing to happen to Marla and Frank, as they’d hoped, he turns out to be the worst thing – while being the best thing in the film.


It would be nice to say that Hughes’ increasingly erratic behaviour pushes the film towards darker, Mulholland Drive territory, but Rules Don’t Apply never breaks out of its genre into true lunacy. That’s not a problem. Beatty’s film is still romantic, but it’s the wryer, grown-up romance formed by the kind of experience – professional, personal – that Beatty has presumably had in spades. He’s achieved something all-too-rare in comedy: a balance between sweetness and cynicism. But will anyone trust him with an Oscar?

by Matthew Robinson

What Rules Don't Apply film review
Where Various Locations | MAP
Nearest tube Leicester Square (underground)
When 21 Apr 17 – 21 Jun 17, Times vary
Price £determined by cinema
Website Click here for more details



Most popular

Best London Exhibition to see now
Top exhibitions on now in London
Things to do in London this weekend: 9–11 June
Things to do in London this weekend: 9–11 June
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast

Editor's Picks

Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Rian Johnson will be the best Star Wars director so far, possibly ever
The Hatton Garden Job
True-story films that England needs
Mia Wasikowska in Park Chan-wook's Stoker
Pretty, weird – our guide to South Korean cinema
The best sex scenes in film
The least-gratuitous sex scenes ever filmed
Outdoor Cinema 2017 London
Outdoor Cinema 2017
Books to read this month
Books to read this April

Editor's Picks

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

Cinema

Comedy

Lily Collins

You might like

  • The Sense of an Ending film review

    The Sense of an Ending film review ★★★★★

  • Park Chan-wook film The Handmaiden

    The Handmaiden film review ★★★★★

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest – London screenings

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest film screenings

  • Neruda film 2017

    Neruda film review ★★★★★

  • Weird film Raw is one of the best horror films this year

    Raw film review ★★★★★

  • Free Fire review

    Free Fire film review ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×