Cannes Film Festival 2021: Val Kilmer docu charts actor's Hollywood rise and fall through his own home recordings

The film draws heavily from Val Kilmer’s huge library of home videos, providing intimate behind-the-scenes footage from his hits, including Tombstone, The Doors and Batman Forever. Val Kilmer has made an intriguing and bittersweet return to the big screen at the Cannes film festival in a new documentary charting his stratospheric rise and later fall in Hollywood through his own home recordings. The film draws heavily from Kilmer’s huge library of home videos — he carried a camera with him throughout his life — providing intimate behind-the-scenes footage from his hits, including Tombstone, The Doors and Batman Forever. The Hollywood Reporter described the film as “agile and alive”, and praised the frankness of its star: “How many certified movie stars would allow themselves to be filmed so physically altered, and on the inescapable downslope of an A-list career?” There is a juicy clash with director John Frankenheimer on the set of The Island of Dr Moreau, a flop that marked the start of his career’s decline in the late 1990s, but the documentary mostly downplays his obsessive — and reportedly exasperating — work habits.