FILM REVIEW

“I don’t appear in public very 

often, but I think I should go out 
more.”

So 
says 
Howard 
Hughes, 

the legendary and mysterious 
industrialist, 
to 

an 
impressionable 

young child at the 
conclusion of “Rules 
Don’t Apply.” The 
same can be said 
for Warren Beatty, 
the 
notoriously 

reclusive 
and 

quiet 
actor 
(and 

director, writer and 
producer) who portrays Hughes 
in the film. This is Beatty’s first 
directorial effort since 1998’s 
“Bulworth,” and his first acting 
role 
since 
2001’s 
“Town 
& 

Country.” In other words, it has 
been a long time coming for fans of 
the mid-to-late-century icon. The 
film, too, has been gestating for a 
long time — Beatty allegedly began 
developing it after an encounter 
with Hughes in the early 1970s. 
But 
development 
hell 
can, 

appropriately, be damning, and 
the film’s disjointed screenplay 
sometimes infringes on its time-
tested material (see “The Aviator” 
for Hughes, “Hail, Caesar!” for 
1950s Hollywood).

It’s 1958. Dwight Eisenhower is 

the country’s president, Marilyn 
Monroe its biggest star. Church 
membership soars as businesses 
rapidly expand. The U.S. is fighting 
the Soviet Union, with nuclear 
fears abounding. In Hollywood 
the studio system reins, firmly 
controlling its stars, both fresh-
faced and weathered.

Marla Mabrey (Lily Collins, 

“Mirror Mirror”), an aspiring 
young 
actress, 
arrives 
in 

Hollywood from a strict Baptist 
upbringing in Virginia. Mabrey 

is under contract at RKO, which 
itself is run by Hughes (though 
the film gets the timeline wrong: 
Hughes in fact sold the studio in 
1955). She and her mother, lovingly 
played by Annette Bening (“The 
Kids Are All Right”), are driven 
by Frank Forbes (the absolutely 
wonderful 
Alden 
Ehrenreich, 

“Hail, 
Caesar!”), 

another 
new 

Hughes hire and 
a relatively devout 
Methodist.

Though 

forbidden 
by 

Hughes’s 
bans 

on 
hanky-panky 

between 
drivers 

and stars, as well 

as their respective religiosity 
(Forbes is, in fact, engaged), the 
two quickly develop a passionate 
relationship, bonding over shared 
professional shame over their 
distance from their boss, the 
illustrious Hughes. But as the two 
continue to establish themselves 
in the business, and grow closer 
to Hughes in unexpected ways, 
their 
lives 
grow 
increasingly 

complicated. 
They 
begin 
to 

question social mores and their 
place at RKO.

Much like the two’s time in 

Hollywood, “Rules Don’t Apply” 
itself can be sliced into two halves. 
The first is one of enchantment; 
tightly edited and beautifully 
shot, Hollywood is a land of 
expansive opportunity and one 
of its titans, Hughes, is reserved 
to mysteriously dark spaces. The 
second is one of disillusionment, 
or perhaps the erraticism that 
plagues Hughes. The bonds among 
Hughes, 
Forbes 
and 
Mabrey 

are strained and tested, and an 
intoxicating high of an all-too-
rare encounter with a legend in 
front of the camera fizzles into a 
throbbing hangover. Scenes drag 
on for far longer than necessary, 
or they only add more material to 

the convoluted plot. The laughs 
(which are relatively consistent 
towards the beginning) come far 
too infrequently. And throughout 
the film, overwrought drama, both 
in dialogue and cliché imagery, 
can suffocate the screenplay’s 
lightness.

But “Rules Don’t Apply” has 

an undeniable charm. There’s 
a 
scintillating 
dynamism 

and 
confidence 
about 
1950s 

Hollywood, and its extravagant 
offices, studios, houses and cars 
are beautifully brought to life in 
the film. Establishing shots seem 
to have been filmed with an old 
camera, rendering Los Angeles, 
Washington, D.C. and Acapulco 
like 
the 
faraway 
postcard 

destinations they had been at the 
time. The size and quality of the 
cast is astounding. Legendary 
actors appear in relatively small 
roles, like Ed Harris (“Pollock”), 
Martin Sheen (“Badlands”), Paul 
Sorvino 
(“Goodfellas”), 
Alec 

Baldwin (“Still Alice”) and Candice 
Bergen (“Gandhi”), to name a 
few. A scene with Steve Coogan 
(“The Trip”) is riotously funny. 
Ehrenreich and Collins, both 
up-and-coming stars, are the true 
highlights. Arguments between 
the two explode with timeless 
passion and sexual urgency.

“Rules Don’t Apply” is stuffed 

with the thematic material — 
religiosity, 
capitalism, 
gender, 

psychology, wealth — that could 
make the film truly special, but 
Beatty doesn’t go all the way. 
What’s missing is some unifying 
theory, some answer, to the 
eternal question of Hughes: what 
really made him so crazy? Hughes 
fascinates Beatty, like the rest of 
us, but “Rules Don’t Apply” doesn’t 
resolve any confusion. That’s not 
to say every good film has to have 
a 
well-constructed 
argument, 

but when a modern master takes 
nearly 20 years between his films, 
it’s reasonable to expect better.

Beatty is back with ‘Rules’

DANIEL HENSEL

Daily Arts Writer

1950s-set Hollywood dramedy squanders star-studded cast 

B-

“Rules Don’t Apply”

Rave & Quality 16

20th Century Fox

TNT

That bone structure thooooough.

There was a time when we 

thought 
Miley 
Cyrus 
would 

forever 
be 
remembered 
as 

Hannah Montana and Emma 
Watson inescapably 
as 
Hermione 

Granger. 
Today, 

it’s almost comical 
to recall Miley as 
a Disney star and 
unfair 
to 
limit 

Emma’s 
success 

to 
the 
Harry 

Potter 
franchise. 

Sometimes, 
drastic 
changes 

are necessary to paint an actor 
in a different light and give 
them the room to explore a new 
character. Maybe that’s what 
“Downton Abbey” ’s Michelle 
Dockery thought she needed 
when she signed on for TNT’s 
“Good Behavior,” because there’s 
nothing quite like seeing Lady 
Mary smoke out of a DIY crack 
pipe to send the message that she’s 
done with the 20th century.

Dockery’s 
performance 
as 

Lady Mary in “Downton Abbey” 
is iconic: with her icy beauty, 
witty remarks and effortless sex 
appeal, she elevates a character 
separated by an entire century 
to someone acutely relevant to 
the modern viewer. She can do 
more with a perfectly manicured 
raise of an eyebrow than some 

can with an entire monologue. 
As the British actress steps into a 
drastically different role as junkie 
ex-con Letty Raines, exchanging 
corsets for plunging jumpsuits 
and pointed upper-class English 
snobbery 
for 
a 
meandering 

Southern drawl, something goes 

missing. It’s more 
than 
just 
the 

initial shock of 
watching 
Lady 

Mary — I mean, 
Letty Raines — 
puke in someone’s 
driveway 
with 

a bad hangover. 
The 
biggest 

disappointment 
of Dockery’s new 

role is not in her performance — 
which is emotional and believable 
and touching — but rather the 
show’s inherent structure, or 
rather lack thereof.

As Letty, Dockery steps into a 

role of a broken women, separated 
from her eight-year-old son by 
a restraining order, addicted to 
drugs and back to her old ways 
of stealing booze and designer 
clothes from expensive hotel 
rooms. She’s the “bad-ass with 
baggage,” but this isn’t enough 
to create a complex and enticing 
female lead. Letty is unstable 
and emotional, characteristics 
that lend well to establishing 
an immediate sympathy to her 
and her situation. However, it’s 
ultimately her flexible moral 
compass and often unmotivated 

decisions 
that 
alienate 
her 

character. The story has striking 
loopholes: 
Letty 
knowingly 

seduces a contracted assassin 
Javier (Juan Diego Botto, “Zorro”) 
only to decide to warn the target 
the next morning, then retreats 
again after shakily pointing a 
shotgun at the assassin/one-
night-stand. 
Her 
emotional 

trajectory is manic, illuminating 
jarring inconsistencies in plot and 
character.

As a result of her unpredictable 

inclinations to occasionally do the 
right thing, Letty is sucked into a 
dangerous relationship with Javier. 
For some unexplained reason, 
Javier decides that he needs Letty 
to help with his assassinations and 
now “owns” her with the promise 
of getting her son back. Their love 
affair is supposed to be hot and 
steamy, but falls flat with the lack 
of genuine connection.

“Good 
Behavior,” 
however, 

is cinematically engaging. The 
camera doesn’t shy away from 
moving into distorted images, 
going out of focus as Letty falls 
off the wagon, and successfully 
builds suspense with extended 
shots scored in complete silence. 
Without thinking too hard or too 
long on its inconsistencies, the 
series is objectively entertaining; 
the fast-paced action translates 
well on screen and the camera 
naturally loves Dockery. But only 
time will tell whether “Good 
Behavior” is able to stick around 
for the long haul.

DANIELLE YACOBSON

Daily Arts Writer

‘Behavior’ lacks the extra punch

Michelle Dockery is strong in otherwise lackluster TNT drama

B-

“Good Behavior”

Series Premiere

Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

TNT

TV REVIEW

6A — Monday, November 28, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com