Tasked with the immeasurable job of packaging over four decades worth of home movies into a two-hour documentary film, Ting Poo and Leo Scott told Val Kilmer’s story of his rollercoaster rise to fame and the depths that followed – Val’s way, in this first-person account of his life. Narrated by his son, Jack Kilmer, “Val” invites audiences to take an intimate look at Val’s life and career from his days growing up on a farm making movies with his two brothers, to his battle with pharyngeal cancer that left him with a hole in his throat and a voice box that he must plug to be able to communicate. “Val” gives audiences a look at the life of an actor – the good, the bad, and the ugly – like it’s a fireside chat with an old friend, reminiscing about the past.
Val tells his story through his decades of home video footage and his son’s voice, telling audiences that he was one of the first people he ever knew to own a video camera. The footage begins in Kilmer’s childhood where he and his two brothers created home movies on Super 8 film, directed by their youngest brother Wesley who would die at the age of 15 after having a seizure in the family’s jacuzzi and drowning. Kilmer attributed much of his successful career to the inspiration he gained from Wesley, who died just after Val left to attend Juilliard, where he would become one of the founders of the first stage acting program at the illustrious school.
The thousands of hours of footage amassed by Kilmer over the years served to give audiences an honest, behind-the-scenes look at the filming of many of Kilmer’s most famous projects from stage to silver screen; including his first major role, which would find him falling to third lead behind Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn in his 1983 Broadway debut in “Slab Boys.” The film dives into his breakthrough role in “Top Secret,” his budding friendship with Tom Cruise in “Top Gun,” one of his most famous and memorable roles as Huckleberry in “Tombstone” alongside Kurt Russell. Val even invites us into his world of method acting for his role as Jim Morrison in “The Doors”- which would play a major role in ending his marriage – his unsatisfying time as “Batman,” his tumultuous experience alongside his hero Marlon Brando in “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” and more. Before the film’s end, the audience is flashed with an image of Val in each of his soirees onto the silver screen, from “Top Secret” to James Franco’s indie film “Palo Alto.”
As much an in memoriam to Kilmer’s vast career as an explanation of who he is, “Val” pulls back the covers on what it truly means to be an artist and to live as unapologetically as possible. The film dives into the struggles he faced throughout his shiny career and the effects these things – the death of his brother, his divorce, his massive debts, the loss of his mother, and the loss of his voice – continue to have on him to this day. Through brutally open and honest monologues, Kilmer lets us into his head about the struggles of his career, his physical and mental health, and what it means to him to be selling the memory of his past to make ends meet. Filled with touching memories of when he fell in love, raising his children, and his successes and failures as an actor; “Val” offers an intimate look into the experiences that shaped Kilmer into the enigma that we’ve come to recognize.
The audience is also taken on a deep dive of Kilmer’s one-man show “Cinema Twain,” which was a passion-project stage production that Kilmer planned to take on a tour of the country. He was hoping he would use the success of this stage tour to finance his directorial debut and turn “Cinema Twain” into a feature length film. After having to postpone a show in Nashville for what Kilmer thought would be “a week or two,” this dream was cut short when Kilmer’s health began to decline. Having always wanted to morph his acting career into one of writing and directing, Kilmer’s dream of telling the story of what it truly means to be an actor took on a new shape and was brought to life through the decades of footage he’d been unknowingly collecting for this exact reason. His archives and the hard work and dedication of directors Ting Poo and Leo Scott came together to finally make these dreams a reality, despite insurmountable odds.
At the premiere of the film at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Scott remarked that from day one of creating “Val,” Kilmer was adamant about the conditions of the film’s premiere and where it would be shown to audiences for the first time. A premiere at Cannes was the only option. Although Kilmer was unable to attend the festival in person, his children Jack and Mercedes were present to accept the well-deserved standing ovation as the credits began to roll.
To even try to begin to describe the impact of this film and Val Kilmer’s incredible career would be an absolute disservice. My favorite film of the festival, “Val” is not only a reminder that fame and fortune do not amount to happiness, but that the beauty of honesty and vulnerability are part of what makes life so meaningful. A magical, raw, and creative collection of mere moments in a man’s life, “Val” is just the medium Kilmer needed to be able to act as himself in the telling of his life story.
“Val” premiered at Festival de Cannes 2021 on July 7th and will be released in theaters by Amazon Studios on July 23rd. The documentary will be available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video on August 6th.
Common Man's Critic 