AFI Fest 2016: “Rules Don’t Apply”

If you've lived in Southern California for the last few decades, it's hard not to become a little nostalgic watching Warren Beatty's delightful "Rules Don't Apply" which made its world premiere opening AFI Fest 2016 on Thursday night. The movie is about a couple caught up in the sphere of Howard Hughes' Hollywood, at a time when the studio contract system was dying and the aerospace industry was changing.

"Rules Don't Apply" begins in 1964. A man has written a biography of Howard Hughes, claiming to have been in contact with the eccentric billionaire. A news conference has convened, with reporters waiting to hear from Hughes by 4:30 p.m., not even sure of his current location. Hughes' aide, Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), is monitoring the situation in a posh Acapulco hotel and talking to a curtain, asking Hughes to respond.

Flashing back to the 1950s, Frank is a new driver, just employed two weeks by Hughes (Beatty). He's been sent to pick up a small town beauty queen and songwriter named Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins), naively mistaking her mother, Lucy (Annette Bening), for the starlet at first. The Mabreys are devout Baptists.

Frank is a Methodist from Fresno (a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Hollywood). Raised by his grandparents, he's engaged to his seventh-grade sweetheart and because they've gone all the way, it's like they're married. Veteran chauffeur Levar Mathis (Matthew Broderick) warns Frank that drivers mustn't fool around with the bored and attractive contract actresses. At first, this rule doesn't seem to apply to Frank.

Marla isn't your typical young starlet. She doesn't have a big bosom, she isn't sexy, nor a good singer or dancer. She's not sure what she's doing in Hollywood as one of 26 women under contract by Hughes. Frank tells her, she's an exception. "The rules don't apply to you."

Their ambitions tie them to Hughes. Lucy is suspicious and demanding but Marla isn't ready to leave. Alone in her beautiful house above the Hollywood Bowl, Marla grows closer to Frank who reveals he hopes to convince Hughes to invest in a land development deal of Mulholland Drive. Eventually, Marla finally gets a screen test and meets with Hughes in a darkened bungalow of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Despite the questionable nature of that night, in a room where a queen-sized bed dimly lit by four candles dominates, Marla stays. Her style changes. Inspired by Frank, Marla sings a song she wrote that gives the film it’s title. Its closing line, “The rules don’t apply to you.”

Frank changes, too, but those changes ultimately separate them. Marla leaves. Frank stays, witnessing Hughes' increasingly erratic behavior and reclusiveness. Hughes, Frank and Levar travel to different cities until they end up in Acapulco, Mexico. Although Hughes marries Jean Peters during this story, she is never shown. Instead, Hughes is accompanied by his trustworthy secretary, Nadine Henly (Candice Bergen), Frank and Levar.

Beatty's interpretation of Hughes is more loopy than lecher turned hygiene-challenged lunatic. Hughes' reported obsessive-compulsiveness is benignly displayed in his six bottles of water from Maine at the Beverly Hills Hotel, his demands for Baskin Robbins' banana nut ice cream, and later, the inclusion of two body doubles in his entourage who don't look like him, but do look like each other.