When first seeing the trailer for Rules Don’t Apply and all of the A-list actors involved, one would think that it would be a hit. However, it was more confusing than anything.
To briefly summarize the plot of a two-hour movie that felt more like five, small-town beauty queen and devout Baptist Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins) comes to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting. Under contract to the infamous Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty), she works and works to get her name out there, but of course that doesn’t happen at first.
She then meets her personal driver Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), who is also from a very conservative and religious background. Of course, they are immediately smitten with each other, but it is forbidden for a driver to have a romantic relationship with one of the contracted actresses. It also risks their religious views.
So after hearing that, one would expect this movie to be a compelling love story about two people meant to be together and defy all the odds and make that happen, right? Wrong.
Instead, viewers are told about three to five different stories in one, with confusing jump cuts, overly-dramatic acting by some of the actors and a crazy old man (a.k.a. real-life Old-Hollywood-film-tycoon Howard Hughes) who is slowly but surely losing his mind (Beatty). I’m all about throwing audiences off and not sticking to the norm, but there is also risk in that, and that shows in Rules Don’t Apply.
Walking into this movie, I was actually pretty excited to see it. I love Lily Collins, and being a huge Star Wars fan, I was excited to see a movie with the new Han Solo: Alden Ehrenreich. Both Collins and Ehrenreich had great performances, but they almost felt wasted on a movie with one of the strangest plot lines ever.
After walking out of that movie, I was disappointed. My colleague just looked at me and said what I was thinking: “What was that movie even about?” I honestly still don’t really know.
Don’t get me wrong though, it wasn’t absolutely terrible. However, it had so much potential. They tried to cram so many things into one film, and it just didn’t work. However, what saved this movie was the acting and the music.
Overall, this movie in my book is a 1.5 out of 4.
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox