THE STORY – The story of how Marlon Brando plucked Bernard Judge, an obscure but idealistic Los Angeles architect from his stable existence and convinced him that he should build the world’s first ecologically perfect retreat on a tiny and uninhabitable Tahitian island.
THE CAST – Billy Zane, Jon Heder, Richard Dreyfuss, Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrere & James Jagger
THE TEAM – Bill Fishman (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 104 Minutes
Recounting a brush with celebrity is a familiar and, for many, an irresistible literary genre that can also produce some pretty good movies, from “Melvin and Howard” (1980) to “My Week With Marilyn” (2011). With “Waltzing With Brando,” the two-time Oscar-winning actor gets his turn at bat, but the results are not quite what you may have expected. Or have hoped.
Based on the memoir “Waltzing With Brando: Planning a Paradise in Tahiti” by noted architect Bernard (Bernie) Judge, the film chronicles the circuitous route taken by Bernie (Jon Heder) to meet the great Marlon Brando (Billy Zane). Originally hired by the powerful Jack Bellin (Rob Corddry) to design a new hotel in Tahiti, Bernie, an environmentally-conscious designer, becomes intrigued with the island of Tetiaroa, which is owned by Brando himself.
Assuring his wife Dana (Alaina Huffman) that his trip will be a short one, Bernie flies to Tahiti and soon comes under Brando’s spell. Heder’s character is set up to be a classic fish-out-of-water, and he fills that bill nicely, shocked by the beaucoup nudity and “anything goes” lifestyle that Brando and his family are practicing. Soon enough, the uptight architect loses his inhibitions (and his clothes) and joins the party.
The first problem for Bernie is that Brando wants to scrap Bellin’s hotel idea, opting instead for an environmentally sustainable complex on his island, a hefty task given the lack of resources on Tetiaroa. His second problem is his new client: whenever Bernie presents the cost and difficulty of practically building such a project, Brando comes up with ingenious (if ridiculous) workarounds — powering the island with electric eels, creating a water supply from his own urine, etc. What’s real, though, are the costs that force Brando to consider going back to work and taking “some gangster picture” (“The Godfather”) to help pay the bills.
To this point, “Waltzing With Brando” is light loopy fun on a “Fantasy Island”-type level. Fishman’s screenplay is pretty straightforward, though he often stops for sidebar sequences, with mixed results. For example, a detailed sequence burnishing Brando’s advocacy of civil rights and friendship with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King is fine but tells us little that we didn’t already know. On the other hand, a brief montage of Zane’s Brando appearing in his iconic roles provides some of the film’s impressive moments. Cinematographer Garrett O’Brien manages to recreate the legendary Gordon Willis imagery in his recreation of the “I believe in America” opening of “The Godfather” to perfection, and his work capturing the look of Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” and Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” are equally as impressive.
But the makeup and hairstyling work on Zane is the real dazzler here. Hannah Schenck and the film’s makeup team transform the actor into Brando personified, both in Tahiti and in his 1970s films. The details, particularly in the face and hands, are remarkable and appear seamless enough to sustain the illusion that the actor has been brought back to life.
None of this would work, of course, without what Zane brings to his performance as Brando. Yes, Brando has a wonderful time being the grand pooh-bah of the island, drinking in all of the adulation that regularly comes his way. But Zane suggests that underneath, Brando is an extraordinarily insecure and lonely man, firmly dedicated to his political causes but still wildly unsure whether he still has the stuff to return to Hollywood at the level that had made him a legend in the first place. It’s an impressively complex performance that starkly contrasts all of the antics around it.
Still, it’s not enough to solve the puzzle at the film’s center — what is the actual relationship between Brando and Bernie? Are they newly formed best buds, as we are led to believe throughout? As fine an actor as each man is, there’s relatively little natural chemistry between Zane and Heder, so the bond we are told the characters have is difficult to fully believe. Or is Brando simply using Bernie to get what he can get out of him? That answer comes late in the film, too late really to make the final overall narrative genuinely satisfying.
Huffman as the put-upon wife and Camille Razat as a seductive stewardess are solid in support, though Richard Dreyfuss is a bit over-caffeinated as Brando’s financial advisor. Thankfully, Tina Carrere channels Eartha Kitt in a very funny cameo as the self-proclaimed “Queen of Tahiti,” whose many husbands have a strange habit of dying shortly after they take their vows.
To this day, Marlon Brando remains one of the most enigmatic figures in show business history, and there’s still time to make a serious film that grapples with the legend (and the puzzle) he became. “Waltzing With Brando” is not that film. But what Billy Zane and this film’s makeup team have accomplished here certainly shows any filmmaker the path for a movie that would do him justice.
