Rating: A-
The line between stardom and artist is a difficult one to walk within the Hollywood system. Val Kilmer always felt like an actor torn between the two disparate worlds of movies. Coming up around the same time as his Top Gun co-star Tom Cruise, Kilmer always walked a different path. Where Cruise chose stardom and rose to the top of the celebrity ladder, Kilmer skirted the edges of celebrity and went kinda weird with it.
This made him feel like something of an enigma. Who wouldn’t want to embrace their star potential and maximize their earnings? This feels like a weird point to make for someone who once played Batman (albeit, in one of the worst movies in the franchise) but a look at his career shows the truth of his intents. From Madmartigan to Doc Holliday to Jim Morrison, Kilmer, as an actor, always tried for something bigger and deeper than mere stardom could ever allow.
That’s what made him one of this generation’s most interesting performers. Of course, his adherence to artistic integrity earned him the career killer of Hollywood labels: Difficult. As the new millennium dawned, the Hollywood tabloid industry couldn’t get enough of his supposed Bad Boy image, and an inaccurate portrait emerged of a pompous actor with whom no one wanted to work.
By his own admission, the actor has been obsessed with documenting his life through video camera since he was a young boy. This obsession forms the core of Val, the new documentary that explores the life of one of Hollywood’s most powerful actors. Using footage shot by Kilmer and his family over the whole of his life, Val becomes a raw and unprecedented look at the life and artistry of one of the most powerful performers of our day.
Kilmer has been largely out of the limelight since his throat cancer diagnosis in 2015, which is understandable. What many might not know, however, is that he recently, in the last couple of years, underwent a tracheotomy, rendering his voice, as we knew it, completely destroyed. Narratively, his son Jack serves as a stand in for Kilmer’s voice in Val, providing the autobiographical voice over that Kilmer is unable to provide himself.
Assembled by directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott, Val is still essentially Kilmer’s take on his own life, from childhood to the present day. Using archival footage and new footage, we slowly see a portrait emerge of a man driven by artistry and commitment. It’s an often sad story, given his current state, but it’s one filled with hope and drive, even as his loss of voice has forced him out of the career he clearly loves so much.
Largely serving as a companion piece to his memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, the film gives us an unprecedented view of Kilmer’s life both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. He opens up about the death of his brother, his time at Juilliard, his divorce from actress Joanne Whalley, and his role as father. He also offers us incredible self-shot footage behind the scenes of some of his biggest films, shedding a new light on the process of filmmaking.
Val is as intimate a look at the man as we can get without knowing him. He opens himself up the same way he opened himself up for all the characters he’s played throughout his decades long career. It also serves as a powerful reminder of the force he was as an actor and a wonderful case study in what it means to be an artist.
Val is now playing in select theaters and will premiere on Amazon Prime on August August 6.
