Leaving Las Vegas

This bittersweet and decidedly dark drama, based on John O’Brien’s 1990 semi-autobiographical novel, earned Nicolas Cage a Golden Globe Award for ‘Best Actor’ while his co-star, Elisabeth Shue, was nominated with the same award. And that’s just two out of numerous others awards and nominations, of which ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Screenplay’ can be added to the impressive list!

Cage delivers a career-best performance as Ben Sanderson, a Hollywood screenwriter who has lost his family (there’s a framed photo of him with his wife and young kid), his friends and his prestigious job due to his chronic alcoholism. Quite how and why he signed a pact with devil booze is never really explained but he’s already a severe alcoholic at the start of the film… hassling a friend in a restaurant for money and making a spectacle of himself wherever he goes and whatever he does. We even see him in his office, buried in scripts piling up around him, barely able to function, until his boss ‘let’s him go’ albeit with a generous severance cheque. With nothing more to lose and even less to live for, Ben decides to head to Las Vegas (where the bars never close) to drink himself to death.

Even en route he can’t give up his boozing habits, drink-driving without causing any serious accidents, which is a miracle in itself. Arriving in Sin City, he almost runs over a young woman when he fails to stop at a crosswalk. “The traffic light is red”, she snarls, “You stop and I walk!” before showing him the finger. The young woman in question is Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a prostitute whose involvement with abusive Latvian pimp Yuri Butsov (the late Julian Sands), who is also her on/off lover, turns out to be as tragic as Ben’s alcohol addiction. While Ben checks into a hotel, Sera continues her nightly prowl on the lookout for potential customers.

The following day, Ben and Sera bump into each other again by chance, he sitting on a bench with a bottle of liquor in his hand, she ‘working’. He offers her a whopping $500 for spending an hour with him back in his hotel, which she accepts - cynically remarking “What this room needs is more booze” upon entering his hotel room and discovering bottles left, right and center. What begins as a straightforward business transaction soon gives way to a conversation between two lost souls who recognise that both are in their self-created own hell but out of this recognition springs a certain understanding which, over the next few days, turns into feelings and unconditional love, though until then, there are many obstacles to conquer, not least Yuri’s continued abuse which only ends when Russian mobsters put an end to him, both Ben and Sera constantly getting evicted from various hotel and motel rooms and Sera even getting barred from the casino which used to be a regular spot for picking up clients, There are bar brawls, gang rape and in between her various attempts to save him, she Suffice to say, there’s no happy ending in store but as a compensation, we are treated to two terrific performances by the film’s two protagonists.

This is not an easy film to watch by any stretch of the imagination and initially, it looked as if the project would never take off to begin with - rejected by most film studio on grounds of the dark and depressing subject matter. Kudos to director Mike Figgis (who also penned the screenplay) and his sheer determination to see things through. Special mention must also go to Declan Quinn for his superb cinematography, to John Smith for the inspired editing and to Anthony Marinelli (in collaboration with Figgis) for the music.

LEAVING LAS VEGAS has just been released in an impressive 4K UHD restoration and on standard Blu-ray. Bonus includes audio commentaries, interviews, Making of… and more.