Though the eyes of many were on the Emmy nominations on Thursday morning, the first trailer for the upcoming movie Rules Don’t Apply was released as well. Set to open on November 23, the movie is the first directed by Warren Beatty since the political satire Bulworth in 1998 — and his first time back in front of the camera since the ill-fated Town and Country was released in 2001.
So it is only appropriate that in the film, Beatty plays notoriously reclusive and secretive billionaire Howard Hughes. However, the limited coverage of the movie up to now has been careful to signal that the movie is not a Hughes biopic like the 2004 Martin Scorsese picture The Aviator, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
Rather the new film, directed by Beatty from a script credited to Beatty from a story by Beatty and Bo Goldman, uses Hughes and his eccentric world as its backdrop. Set in 1958 Hollywood, a small town beauty queen (Lily Collins) becomes an actress under contract to Hughes who then gets involved with one of his drivers (Alden Ehrenreich), putting them both afoul of Hughes’ strict rules about romance among employees.
Besides Beatty, Collins and Ehrenreich — the young star seen earlier this year in Hail, Caesar! and recently cast as the young Han Solo for an upcoming Star Wars prequel — the film features an impressive supporting cast. Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Haley Bennett, Candice Bergen, Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Megan Hilty, Oliver Platt and Martin Sheen all appear in the movie as well.
Though its official synopsis declares the movie a “dramedy,” the tone of the trailer is one of a zippy screwball romance and erstwhile comedy of manners, if the manners in question are the questionable codes of Hollywood. As Collins says to Beatty’s Hughes, “If what you are is crazy, then give me more crazy.”
The film’s first poster, also released on Thursday, made clear for anyone who may not be familiar with the work of the 79-year-old Beatty that Rules Don’t Apply is “from the Academy Award winning filmmakers of Reds, Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo, Dick Tracy, Bonnie And Clyde, Bugsy and Bulworth.” He worked on those films in a variety of capacities, from director to writer to producer to actor.
Beatty is a 15-time Oscar nominee who won best director for Reds and is a recipient of the academy’s prestigious Irving G. Thalberg memorial award. And given the film’s holiday release date, its Hughes/Hollywood-related story and Beatty’s storied career, it will remain to be seen how the film plays into the upcoming season’s awards picture. Or as Beatty said to the New York Times for a 2015 story attempting to peel back the mysteries of his long-gestating project, “I would appreciate if you would say Mr Beatty good-naturedly declined to comment.”
