Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
The unconventional love story of an aspiring actress, her ambitious driver, and their eccentric boss, the legendary billionaire Howard Hughes.
Warren Beatty's passion project about Howard Hughes is an oddly unfocused affair. The love triangle between the young actress and her driver is underdeveloped, and Hughes himself overwhelms the central romance, leaving the film narratively adrift. The period production design and cinematography are competent and evocative of Old Hollywood, and the cast (including Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich) deliver earnest performances. However, the ending feels abrupt and unsatisfying, failing to resolve the emotional threads it set up. The novelty of framing a Hughes story through the eyes of his employees rather than Hughes himself is a genuine conceptual choice, though the execution undermines its promise.