LEAVING LAS VEGAS
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks
(1995) ***1/2 (out of four)
I don't think there's been a movie since SCHINDLER'S LIST, or at least DEAD MAN WALKING, that I've been so involved in that it was nearly impossible to get through. Adapted from the John O'Brien novel, LEAVING LAS VEGAS is a portrait of depression that wraps us up in two people, making us know, care and sympathize with them, then leaves us helpless in watching them destroy themselves. This uncompromising Mike Figgis film is an incredible emotional experience that leaves out all the usual Hollywood trappings, save its two stars.
Nicolas Cage plays a writer who has been leaving reality behind, on an escalating basis, since his wife left him. It's to the point where, from the moment he gets up in the morning until he passes out at night, he's in an alcohol-induced stupor and can't allow himself to sober up. So, when he embarrasses himself in front of some colleagues (including one of his fellow DRUNKS, Richard Lewis) and is fired from his job, he sells or burns everything he owns and heads to Las Vegas. He may not have much left, but with the Vegas gamblers, mafiosos, drunks and hookers, at least he'll be in good company.
Cage's plan is to just keep drinking until he dies and, indeed, after one painful bank scene, we never see him sober again. Most of the time, he's guzzling down vodka or tequila like it's Evian water. In Vegas, he meets Elisabeth Shue, a street hooker he takes back to his $29 motel room. She wants to blow him, he wants to talk and it turns out she's just as lonely as he is. And she has her share of problems with abusive pimp Julian Sands slashing her butt cheeks after she returns from a night of work with less cash than required, plus it seems people just don't respect her profession. Hey, people, she works hard for the money!
They work out a beneficially mutual relationship. She has someone to keep her warm nights and he has someone to take care of him -- feed him, clean up after him, direct him to the nearest place he can puke -- and both accept each other without trying to change them. Unfortunately, this means Shue will just have to sit by and watch as Cage's liver gets closer and closer to that of David Crosby and that Cage will have to share Shue with anyone who can cough up a couple hundred bucks, or $175 on double coupon day. But, for each of them, the other is the only caring person they know.
Cage won an Oscar for LEAVING LAS VEGAS, and a completely deserved one at that. He's always fun in action movies and light comedies, but it's almost inconceivable that this is the same guy who starred in AMOS AND ANDREW and CON-AIR. His performance, in conveying the depression and hopelessness of his character while still making him seem human and likeable, in various states of drunkenness no less, goes far beyond anything else Cage has achieved. Shue, as the damned-if-she-do-damned-if-she-don't hooker with a heart of gold, is amazing too. This is a career reviving performance for the woman who seemed so innocent in fluff like ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.
The relationship Cage and Shue have with each other is a Catch-22 in which disappointment and loss is inevitable, and once we as viewers realize this, we set ourselves up for the same frustration Shue's character must have, in caring but being unable to stop the path of destruction. LEAVING LAS VEGAS is utterly absorbing because the acting is so incredible, the characters compelling and the writing superior, but it's hard to keep watching because it seems so real and so sad. That was probably O'Brien's goal; he wasn't a happy man himself. He committed suicide shortly after selling the movie rights to LEAVING LAS VEGAS. There's probably a really sad movie in that story too.
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