October 27, 1995 | One last spin of the dice, one final round before closing time. That’s all Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) really wants during his long, lingering bender in Las Vegas. Only that, and just one thing more: the fatally intoxicating buzz that comes from the grim certainty that you will give out before your money does.
In the opening scenes of Leaving Las Vegas, a mesmerizing drama that takes a brutally honest view at the romance of self-annihilation, it becomes very clear that Ben is not merely hitting rock bottom, but passionately embracing it. Once a promising screenwriter, now a minor functionary — probably employed out of pity — by a Hollywood talent agency, Ben is an embarrassment on the brink of becoming a major disaster. Staggeringly drunk, he nonetheless tries to be chummy and swap gossip with film industry insiders at a posh Los Angeles restaurant. He manages to borrow some drinking money from one of the insiders — but as he takes the cash, he also receives a warning to never attempt another loan, to never appear in the same general vicinity. There might have been a time when Ben would have been too proud to put up with such condescending treatment. If so, however, that time was a long time ago.
The evening wears on. Ben giddily fills his shopping cart at a liquor store, tries to pick up a beautiful woman in a bar, gets his wedding ring stolen by a prostitute, winds up passed out on his kitchen floor. Then his real troubles begin. Ben’s boss calls him into his office, and quietly breaks the bad news: He’s fired. Ben doesn’t even try to argue in his defense. It’s as though he has seen it coming all along. Or wanted it to come. Or repeatedly did his damnedest until he made it come.
The audience never really learns much about the life Ben has led before we meet him, before the day he decides to leave Los Angeles and head to Las Vegas. Did he start drinking because he could no longer write, or was it the other way around? There is mention of an ex-wife, and a child, and we’re left to assume why they are no longer around. But did they run away, or did he? From what level of achievement has he taken a free fall? Many questions, few answers. Even when asked point blank about his announced intention of drinking himself to death, Ben is either unwilling or unable to explain himself. Why is he doing this? “I don’t remember,” he replies, appearing genuinely puzzled by both the question and his answer. “I just know that I want to.”
Like some figure in a medieval morality play, the fact of Ben’s existence is all the rationale we are given for that existence. Leaving Las Vegas is at heart a romance of the damned, the story of Ben’s brief but passionate attachment to a vulnerable prostitute (Elisabeth Shue in a career-making performance) as he drifts along toward oblivion. But while this aspect of the movie is involving and affecting, the dreamily sad love story is merely part of a much darker, scarier picture: a portrait of a man who is hellbent on traveling to that dark corner of the forest that is several miles south of despair. And who wants to have a good time, wants to remain a jolly companion and a courtly gentleman, each step of the way.
As Franz Kafka once noted, and later was quoted by Paul Bowles in The Sheltering Sky, “From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” The devastating genius of Cage’s performance is his ability to vividly convey just how closely Ben has taken those words to his heart.
Not that Cage is the whole show. Until now, Shue has been known best, if at all, as a reliably perky lightweight in such fluff as Cocktail and Adventures in Babysitting. In those earlier films, she was extremely pleasant and instantly forgettable. But as Sera in Leaving Las Vegas, she has no trouble making sure she will be remembered. Sera, too, has inner demons and a self-destructive streak. Indeed, when she first enters the film, she is caught up in sadomasochistic bind with her brutal Latvian pimp (Julian Sands in a showy cameo). He’s a sleazy monster, but at least he helps her get through the night. When he exits the picture, Sera is left with an emotional and physical void to fill. For better or worse, that’s when Ben staggers into her life.
In a more conventional movie, written and directed by a more conventional moviemaker, Sera might come across as your standard-issue whore with a heart of gold. But Michael Figgis (Stormy Monday, Internal Affairs), who adapted Leaving Las Vegas from a novel by the late John O’Brien, is after something much more complex. And in Shue, he has found an actress with enough selfless integrity and emotional eloquence to shed a revealing light on the character’s needs and compulsions. Sera knows exactly what she is getting into the moment she opens her home, and her heart, to Ben. (She would willingly open her bed, too, but he is usually too drunk to be of much use there.) And even if she harbored any illusions about somehow rescuing Ben from the massive train wreck that is his life, she is disabused of that notion. “You can never, ever ask me to stop drinking,” Ben informs her at the start of their relationship. Shortly thereafter, she gives him a present: a silver flask. He acknowledges the gift with an achingly grateful smile. “Looks like I’m with the right girl,” he says.
There have been many, many depictions of alcoholics in movies throughout the years, ranging from the anxious terror of Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend to the wistful foolishness of Dudley Moore in Arthur. But Cage does things that you haven’t seen on screen before, or at least not quite the same way he does them. For more than a decade, he has consistently impressed and frequently astonished with his willingness to aim for the ozone with his flamboyant comedic turns and his intense dramatic performances. And while he has sometimes crash-landed into self-parody — it is difficult to merely read the titles Vampire’s Kiss or Peggy Sue Got Married without cringing a bit at the memory of his excess — his fearless approach to his art has more often led to stunning portrayals in such films as Birdy, Moonstruck, Wild at Heart and Raising Arizona. In Leaving Las Vegas, he dares to be subdued, all the better to beguile you with the disarming wit and snappy banter that make Ben — when you initially meet him, at least — such great company. After you’re hooked, of course, the tremors and the rages and all the other tell-tale signs of alcohol-fueled meltdown are even more devastating. Cage maneuvers through the wild mood swings, the exuberant highs and agonized lows, with the daredevil grace of an acrobat. And, better still, he never lets the effort show.
Figgis, a trained musician with a fondness for lush jazz, greatly enhances the melancholy mood of his doomed romance with his own hauntingly effective musical score. (The soundtrack also includes several numbers, originals and standards, soulfully sung by Sting, the star of Figgis’ Stormy Monday). Yet Figgis doesn’t try to soften his movie’s bleak vision, or soften its harsh edges. By shooting the small-budget film in Super-16 rather than the more common 35mm, he strives for a semi-documentary flavor that is altogether appropriate for a character study that makes no excuses and passes no judgments.
Ultimately, Leaving Las Vegas is about the awful unknowability of some people. There are those among us who have cut loose the moorings for a private cruise into hell, who consider themselves beyond all hope of forgiveness or redemption, who defiantly burn the candles at both ends as they lurch forward into the darkness. There is something about their sheer recklessness that makes them appealing, alluring. And, yes, there is a threat posed by their freedom, a defiant rebuke to the careful compromises and workaday concerns that take up our own safer but less venturesome lives. Leaving Las Vegas never “explains” Ben Sanderson, but, then again, it doesn’t have to. Just take a good look at him, and you’ll likely see someone you know. Or, worse, you might even see just a bit of yourself.
