Review: Rules Don't Apply (12A)

You’d have to go back to his last directorial effort, 1998’s political satire Bulworth, to get some measure of his mercurial talent, and even further to start seeing the really great performances. Given his limelight shirking proclivities over the last two decades, it’s perhaps appropriate that he’s chosen to re-enter the filmmaking fray with a movie about Hollywood’s strangest recluse: Howard Hughes.

Written, directed by and starring Beatty, Rules Don’t Apply is nothing if not strange, though sadly not in a good way. Set mainly in 1959, but framed by a 1964 press conference set up to dispute the publication of Clifford Irving’s notorious hoax biography of Hughes, the film is a sort of epic screwball comedy that plays more like a private joke. Beatty’s own shadowy appearances as Hughes are mildly amusing, but his direction is far too skittish to generate much interest in a plot that mostly focuses on a newly arrived contract player (Lily Collins) and her relationship with Hughes and his young driver (Alden Ehrenreich).

On general release