He left everything to feel something.
2025-09-19
N/A
104 min
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.
I recently sat down to screen Waltzing with Brando, a biographical film about Bernard Judge's friendship with Marlon Brando, with a heavy emphasis as to how their relationship came to be.
I went in with the highest of expectations due to the involvement of Billy Zane, Tia Carrere, Richard Dreyfuss, and Jon Heder. What joy to not only have those expectations met, but surpassed.
The storytelling flavor feels likened to a wholesome Hunter S. Thompson tale narrated in the style of Stand by Me or The Sandlot, with infidelity and alcohol still in the mix. Which I think rightfully conveyed the sense of how befriending an industry behemoth like Marlon Brando would feel, as a little bug.
While the film honors Marlon Brando the man, it doesn't shy away from how flawed he was as a person. Rather, it approaches it in a very loving, human way. It allows room for the nuance that a life lived, brings to the table. I do recommend going into it with the understanding that activism back then looked entirely different from activism today. They were still leaps & bounds ahead of the rest of western society, yet they didn't understand that they too were still colonizers in their actions.
What truly stuck with me was Billy Zane's performance. Whilst Zane has always delivered stellar acting in every film he has been in (my #1 being Demon Knight), he is transcendent as Brando. He felt candid, honest, truly embodying the role.
Jon Heder was fantastic as Bernard Judge, the man behind the story. An architect brought onto a project by Brando to help him build an ecologically self-sustaining retreat on an untouched remote Tahitian island. The intention being so that Brando could finally abandon Hollywood and live as a happy recluse. We are passengers in Judge's POV, witnesses to his trials and tribulations.
Overall, the film felt stylistically scattered, which in this rare case, served the greater good of the project. The mood is ever-changing, translated in a way where I, as the viewer, was able to feel like I too had an emotional stake in how the story would end. There's also a fair share of humor in betwixt.
I highly recommend Waltzing with Brando to everyone. Stay for the end credits.
