I finally saw Waltzing With Brando the other night. Before opening it had been obvious to everyone that Waltzing was an insubstantial bauble, a cinematic piffle…interesting only for Billy Zane‘s performance as an early ’70s incarnation of the great Marlon Brando.
The fact that the 59-year-old Zane is almost a dead ringer for the Godfather/Last Tango-era Brando…that’s the selling point. He’s certainly striking and actually rather disarming to hang with, which is all the film is basically about…chilling with a whimsical, easygoing, laid-back legend…bask in it!
There are portions of Waltzing With Brando, trust me, in which Zane’s Brando schtick is enough, which is to say pleasantly transporting or at least alpha-vibey. His unpretentious, laid-back, low-key confidence is actually pretty great. I totally bought into it.
And the mid 40ish Jon Heder, whose last big score was the titular role in Napoleon Dynamite, which enjoyed a glorious reception at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival..Heder isn’t half bad as architect and ecological planner Bernard Judge, whom Brando hired to convert Tetiaroa, the Tahiti-adjacent, horseshoe-shaped atoll that Brando bought in 1966, into an ecologically wholesome, self-sustaining haven.
This is what Waltzing With Brando, directed and written by Bill Fishman, is basically about — a South Seas design-and-engineering project with interludes in which Brando hangs out, sips from drinks, charms the womenfolk, talks about what he wants to see happen on Tetiaroa, drops trou without going full frontal, etc.
Judge works for years on end (initially in Tahiti but mostly on Tetiaroa). ’70 to ’75 or thereabouts. No story tension, no dramatic arc, no third-act twist….nothing. Just a lot of engineering details about potable water, building a small airstrip, this and that logistical challenge. Plus Fishman breaks the fourth wall by having Heder talk to the camera when the mood strikes. (The Brando resort wasn’t built until well after Brando’s death in 2004 — it opened in 2014.)
The only thing that “happens” of a dramatic nature is when Judge impulsively decides to cheat (or at least start to cheat) on his 40ish wife Dana, portrayed by Alaina Huffman. The object of temptation is the blonde, 15-years-younger Michelle, played by Camille Razat. But he does so foolishly. Most of the time Dana is back in Los Angeles (they have a school-age daughter); she only visits Tetiaroa from time to time. So when does Judge express a brief interest in ravaging Michelle? During one of Dana’s visits, of course. Idiot.