Neil Welch Marla Mabrey is a naive but beautiful virgin, one of many ingénues kept on the payroll by Howard Hughes in the hope of Hollywood stardom. There is mutual attraction between her and driver Frank - he is also hopeful of using the Hughes connection as a step up - but they are both scared of the warning that moving that attraction forward is grounds for dismissal.This set-up is made clear in the trailer. What happens from here onwards is that the film - written and directed by Warren Beatty - concentrates on Howard Hughes as he gets deeper and deeper into his squirrelly period, spending much of this 127 minute film in deep shadow or behind curtains. Since Beatty also plays Hughes, one comes to the conclusion that this is essentially a vanity project. It is also pretty dull.The trailer also leads you to believe it is a comedy. Despite some amusing moments, it isn't. So, it's neither a romance nor a comedy. In fact, it's far from clear exactly what sort of film it is other than a long and not-very-interesting one.There is a phenomenal cast, but most of them are given very little to do. Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich as the ostensible romantic leads are pleasing, but somewhat betrayed in that the movie isn't actually about them at all.The period production values are heavily in evidence, and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography is gorgeous.And you leave the cinema two hours later going "What was that all about, then?"

Robert J. Maxwell The two lovers in this semi-fictional tale of Howard Hughes, his girl friends, and his bodyguard, are Alden Erenreich, who begins as a driver for Hughes and works his way up to chief cook and bottle washer, and Lilly Collins, a young naif from Front Royal, Virginia, who has put her education on a back burner after being put "on the hook" to Hughes and brought to Los Angeles for a screen test for a movie that will never be made. Their features are such that at time, if you squint properly, it seems that Leonardo de Caprio is kissing Elizabeth Taylor. We follow their careers in parallel.Warren Beatty, the producer, has brought a fine cast together and put them to work in a sentimental but successful comedy. The character holding the entire massive thing together is Howard Hughes himself, played to the bone by Beatty. He makes no attempt to capture the historic Hughes, the kind of extreme obsessive-compulsive that only great wealth can permit to exist without alarm bells ringing all over the place. Instead, Beatty gives us a loud. cheerful, reckless, clumsy, impulsive, and funny Howard Hughes -- always worrying that somebody's trying to "put me in the nut house." The best illustration has Beatty sitting alone in a darkened theater, listening to some Gofer read back his letter to some law enforcement agency. The letter is about a missing cat that belongs to Hughes' new wife. So we watch Beatty entranced by his own vulgar demands about a man with his resources and the disappeared cat, while Beatty twitches with delight and nods his head emphatically to underline the points his letter is making, perfectly satisfied with himself.I won't outline the plot but I'll say that it alternates between mostly understated comedy and sober softheartedness, with comedy predominant towards the beginning and emotionalism at the end, leading us to two happy lovers departing Hughes and misleading us to one Hughes and one lost love.That the rules don't apply is a reassurance given by Erenreich to Collins, who is concerned that the rules of Hollywood require her to give it up despite her stern Baptist upbringing, but of course the rules don't apply to Howard Hughes either. The notion of freedom from norms is caught up in a simple and tune written by Collins, accompanied by rather nifty lyrics. It's not so much that the rules don't apply. It's that to a great extent we make our own rules except for biological imperatives. We all grow up, grow old, and die. And there are several references, in the lyrics and elsewhere, of lost youth and fearful age. Of Collins it has to be said that she's right purty. Her features and gracile physique lend her an adolescent quality that's appealing.I admire the film especially because it lack the usual dumbed-down quality that afflicts so many Hollywood productions these days. Good job.

gradyharp Warren Beatty wrote the screenplay for his own story (with Bo Goldman), stars in and directs this parody of the life of the very strange and very successful Howard Hughes. Though pieced together like a changing puzzle the film works, largely to a fine starring role for Beatty and a supporting cast that is up to his caliber.As the official synopsis states, 'An aspiring young actress (Lily Collins) and her ambitious young driver (Alden Ehrenreich) struggle hopefully with the absurd eccentricities of the wildly unpredictable billionaire, Howard Hughes, (Warren Beatty) for whom they work. It's Hollywood, 1958. Small town beauty queen, songwriter, and devout Baptist virgin Marla Mabrey (Collins), under contract to the infamous Howard Hughes (Beatty), arrives in Los Angeles. At the airport, she meets her driver Frank Forbes (Ehrenreich), who is engaged to be married to his 7th grade sweetheart and is a deeply religious Methodist. Their instant attraction not only puts their religious convictions to the test, but also defies Hughes' #1 rule: no employee is allowed to have any relationship whatsoever with a contract actress. Hughes' behavior intersects with Marla and Frank in very separate and unexpected ways, and as they are drawn deeper into his bizarre world, their values are challenged and their lives are changed.'Add to this a kaleidoscope of famous actors in secondary as well as bit roles – Matthew Broderick, Candice Bergen, Martin Sheen, Annette Benning, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Oliver Platt, Alec Baldwin, Dabney Coleman, and more – and the film becomes a play about Hollywood – in a good way. Not a great movie but an entertaining one.

danielri I was surprised by the financial losses in theaters when this film was first released. I suspect it will have a long life via other modes of distribution.I thoroughly enjoyed it overnight at home during a rain storm.Surprised to see Candice Bergen in a cameo kind of role with almost no lines of dialogue.The ending is somewhat predictable but Warren Beatty does an entertaining job playing the role of the supposedly crazy billionaire aviation and movie magnate.Thanks for a fine two hours, Warren.