Published on a day where at any point this would have been interpreted as nothing more than a sick joke, actor Val Kilmer’s reported death at the age of 65 on Tuesday leaves in its wake a memorable career from one of the most discernible screen stars of my generation.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Kilmer’s work in films such as Top Gun, Tombstone, and The Doors. I remember my mother’s reaction to Batman Forever as “cartoonish”. I didn’t take it as seriously considering I was twelve and a Batman fan regardless, although I have to say the one film that has always stuck with me as far back as I can remember even having cable was Real Genius.
Martha Coolidge’s 1985 teen comedy starring Gabe Jarrett as Mitch, a fledgling laser physics prospect surreptitiously recruited by a university professor plays as a delightful coming-of-age tale wrapped in science and romance, and a touch of espionage. Kilmer’s role as university student and residential eccentric, Chris, is central to the film’s buoyant tale of friendship and growth, paired with spy thrills that find our duo joining nerd forces when they realize their laboratorial milestones are being used for darker government machinations.
The oddball friendship between Mitch and Chris has always been a boon for me – a reminder that not everything in life has to be taken seriously, while taking serious the necessity of life and the importance of caring for one another. I’ve had moments in my life where I was the kid getting bullied and ostracized by my peers, and moments where, like Chris after having his lab model sabotaged by Kent (Robert Prescott), I’m left quoting Socrates.
Real Genius is a subversive and endearing tale of the comeback kids who stared down the odds and fought for what was right. It’s a story of what it means to really live and to define ourselves, and it’s a story that continues to resound as well as it does to this day, a time when Baby Boomer fascists and oligarchs insist on turning back America’s clock to its most regressive periods, and undoing a century of progress…
And not for nothing either, the soundtrack attached to Real Genius had the goods. IYKYK.
Rest, Val, and thanks for the vibe.
Lead image via Tri-Star Pictures