Leaving Las Vegas [DVD] [1996]

Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) is an alcoholic who has nothing left to live for but the very booze that seems to be the only happiness he can find. His friends want nothing to do with him and women are disgusted by him. After being let go from his job, Ben burns all of his possessions and moves to Las Vegas, where his only plan is to drink himself to death. In a short amount of time he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a lonely hooker who has been through it all. An unexpected bond is formed between the two and love falls upon them that can only end in tragedy.

Boy, was this a hard movie to watch, but it was so well-done and executed. You are able to sympathize with both Ben and Sera, despite the paths they have chosen. Nicholas Cage was amazing and brilliant. No wonder why he won an Academy Award for his performance. You really buy into the fact that he is this sad character who wants nothing more but to destroy himself by the only thing that can bring him some sense of false happiness. Shue is also terrific in her role and should be applauded as well. The two are explosive as a team and can really bring the house down.

"Leaving Las Vegas" is drama at its best. It's heartbreaking, but at the same time is satisfying. It's emotionally charged from start to finish. The writing is poetic, the acting is electric, and the directing is fantastic. Be warned, this is not a "feel-good" movie. It's a portrait of harsh reality and it doesn't go easy on you for a second. If you want a powerhouse drama that will keep you emotionally involved, this is the one for you. A terrific and amazing film on every front.

Nicholas Cage gives a haunting performance as Ben Sanderson, a man who has lost everything and come to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. On his way down he meets a prostitute named Sera and in their spiraling despair they discover love. One of the most poignant moments in the film comes when Cage is on the streets of Las Vegas seeking human contact and can’t remember whether he lost everything because of his drinking or started drinking because he lost everything. Cage’s performance rings absolutely true and deservedly won him the Oscar. He shows with great tenderness the sad realism of being an alcoholic.

Matching Cage scene for scene is Elizabeth Shue in a brilliantly realized role that should have won an Oscar. As this working girl begins to care about Ben she discovers she is not dead inside, like some, and can still love. But when Ben finally pushes her away in order to save her she realizes that if she lets him, she may very well lose this power to love and her connection to being human. Going back, however, may be more than her heart can bare.

Figgis has made a mesmerizing film of almost overwhelming sadness. This is not a ‘feel good’ movie by any stretch of the imagination. There is both truth and poetry here though for those who know this life. Ben and Sera are like two roses; one withering at the onset of its last winter and the other finding an unexpected bud on a long dormant vine.

An incredible sountrack with artist like Michael MacDonald and Sting is used to set the tone for this wonderful but difficult to watch film. Anyone who has ever been devastated by a loss and known a Sera will be moved by this heartbreaking journey into loneliness and despair. Though brilliant, its appeal may be limited and it is easy to understand why some are not as enthusiastic about it.

But for those who have even seen or experienced a glimmer of this side of life and been shown the comforting tenderness of love on the way down, the final moments of this film will be almost painful to watch and deeply affecting. Figgis has made a masterpiece for all those who have walked away before the night swallowed them up completely and they were lost forever.

One scene at the beginning of the movie encapsulates beautifully the way in which alcohol has dragged Ben down, and robbed him totally of any last shred of his self-respect.
His film producer colleagues Marc (Steven Webber) and Peter (Richard Lewis) are having dinner and drinks in an upmarket restaurant while they shoot the breeze about their latest blockbuster film project.
Ben has run out of cash, and is desperate for a drink.
He spots his erstwhile buddies, and dollar signs immediately begin to flash before his eyes. He bursts into their private conversation in a desperate attempt to cadge enough money to allow him to carry on boozing. He completely demeans and degrades himself for the paltry price of a few drinks, and what’s more he realises it. But alcohol has him in such a fierce stranglehold that he would quite literally go to any lengths to get the necessary wherewithal to buy his next glass of hooch!

His career is on the slide, and he’s eventually sacked by his boss. This is done reluctantly, and it’s plain that his boss still has a lot of regard for him, but has now been let down just once too often, and left with no alternative but to let Ben go.
It’s the last straw for Ben, who concludes that he can’t fight his addiction any longer, and decides to take his own life. But a painless death with a bottle of pills is not for him! He decides to go out with a bang. He liquidates all his remaining assets, and with the severance pay from his job heads for the bright lights of Las Vegas, where he reckons he can ‘party’ 24-hours a day without sticking out like a sore thumb.
He’s worked out a budget that will allow him to maintain his required daily alcohol intake (enormous) and the occasional fling with a hooker, and which should see him dead and buried within a few months.

But he hasn’t reckoned on falling in love!
He’s hardly landed in Vegas when he meets Sera, (Elisabeth Shue) a prostitute with a heart of gold, who falls for him like a ton of bricks. (And vice versa)
Before long she has convinced him to move into her apartment, and has even given him a present of a silver hip flask to hold the real love of his life, his beloved booze. Ben reckons he’s at last found a woman that truly ’understands’ him.
A poignant scene with Sera captures to a tee the hopeless plight of the drinking alcoholic. Sera is trying to convince him to move in with her, and he agrees, but only after making her give a solemn promise.

“The one thing you can NEVER ask me to do is to stop drinking!”

You know from the start that the relationship is doomed to failure.
Ben is incapable of sustaining any form of physical relationship. In one harrowing scene by a hotel pool, we see Sera taking off her bikini top and soaking her breasts in champagne, in a futile attempt to get Ben more interested in her body than his beloved booze.
Ben’s interested all right, but is so piss*d that he falls over, shattering a glass table and cutting himself to ribbons. Sera then proceeds to lick his wounds clean!
She loves this man so totally that she’s prepared to put up with almost anything to win his affection, and will care for him no matter what.

Elisabeth Shue gives the performance of her life as Sera.
We’re never really told how she ended up as a prostitute, working for a sadistic Russian pimp. (played by Julian Sands) She is as trapped by her lifestyle every bit as much as Ben is ensnared by his alcohol addiction, and cannot break free from the ‘easy money’ she has become used to earning.
This is no glossy “Pretty Woman” type of movie, and we see the inherent dangers of prostitution when in one gut-wrenching scene she is brutally beaten and anally raped by a bunch of college boys out for a night on the town.

The movie is directed by Mike Figgis. ( Stormy Monday, Internal Affairs) and is based on a autobiographical novel by author John O’Brien.
Incidentally, O’Brien never got to see his novel on the silver screen, because he himself committed suicide only two weeks after it went into production.
British director Figgis has brilliantly captured the futility and despair of both the drinking alcoholic and the unglamorous and dangerous life of a prostitute.
He doesn’t even attempt to introduce any “feel-good” factor, by hinting at a possible happy ending, with Sera giving up the game, and Ben getting himself ‘clean and sober’. Instead he concentrates on showing us what actually happens to over 90% of alcoholics, who NEVER get sober, and eventually end up dead from their illness.
Incidentally, Cage researched his part in the movie by actually going on a series of binge drinking sessions himself, and by talking to dozens of alcoholics in clinics all over America.

Be warned. This is not a movie that is easy to watch, and to say I enjoyed it wouldn’t be a correct assessment. It’s far to hard hitting, and it’s message far too brutal, for it to be ‘enjoyed’ in the conventional sense.
But I guarantee that you won’t fail to be moved.