Val

You grow surprisingly attached to Val Kilmer as this goes along, and prepared to indulge his pretentious side as he grapples for a state of grace.

A raw, honest portrait of self-reflection by one of Hollywood's biggest names in a personally and professionally challenging period of transition.

It presents an actor reckoning not only with the imprint left upon him by his roles, but with how to reconstitute one of his most difficult moments into a period of freedom.

It's vibrant, quick, and alive, and Val Kilmer today makes for an entertaining guide, with his hammy facial gestures now doing double duty since he can't talk.

The moral of "Val," may be that Kilmer is his own worst enemy, an idea that gives the film its diffused power.... "Val" certainly engenders sympathy, but at times it feels like crocodile tears.

The result is undoubtedly a canny mediation on the vagaries of fame, but it feels more intimate and essential than that: a lifetime of searching and self-regard distilled, somehow, into a state of grace.

It’s a intensely personal film with a deep sense of longing, not so much for a career that once was, but for a chance to finally tell his life story in his own words.

Getting poor reviews is likely hard for any actor, but Kilmer never let them define him. Nor did he ever let anything stand in his way of being his unequivocal self at every stage of his life, and today, we have the footage to see it all.

Tiptoes past the actor's fame, falling into autohagiography.

A fascinating look about the actor whose life and times took a tragic turn.