"Leaving Las Vegas"
                             A Film Review by
                           Linda Lopez McAlister
                           on "The Women's Show"
                          WMNF-FM 88.5, Tampa, FL
                             February 24, 1996

     I realize that I'm very late getting around to seeing this film, and
you've probably already heard a great deal about it or have seen it yourself.
But for those of you who might be thinking of catching up with it late, if
only to see before Oscar time what all the acclaim is about, perhaps I can
give you an idea. It's about the screenplay and novel on which it was based,
the direction and editing, the soundtrack, and the acting. All of which
deserve all the praise they've been getting. This is a very hard film to
watch. It is about self-destructive people in the process of
self-destructing--or at least one of them is, the other may be in the process
of saving herself, though that's not certain.

   Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) is a man who has worked in the film industry
in Hollywood and is a sweet person whom people obviously like, when he's
sober. But he isn't sober, ever, anymore; he's in the final stages of drinking
himself to death. He has already lost his family; at the beginning of the film
he loses his job. He takes his severance pay and heads to Las Vegas because
there  you can buy liquor 24 hours a day, in order to finish the job of
drinking himself to death in, he figures, about four weeks. His prediction
proves to be pretty accurate.

   His story after he gets to Las Vegas is more or less narrated from the
point of view of Sera (Elizabeth Shue) in sessions with her therapist that are
ongoing throughout the time she spends with Ben and continue, at the end of
the film, after his death. That she is seeking help and trying to understand
her own motivations and feelings is what makes one think that she may actually
someday leave Las Vegas alive and, we can hope, healed. Surely, the acts of
generosity and kindness, of love and mercy, that she performs for Ben in his
dying weeks are such profoundly good acts from any number of moral
perspectives (but particularly from an ethic of care), that with help, she
should have the basis for a rebuilding of her own sense of self worth which
has been severely damaged in her short life. We never learn anything about her
childhood; we can surmise that it was not great.

   One of the many remarkable things about this film as compared to most
Hollywood treatments of prostitutes is that it seems to be a much more
realistic portrayal of the dangers and horrors of the life (this is NOT a
hooker fairy-tale like "Pretty Woman"). I say that somewhat guardedly for what
do I know about what it's like to be working the streets of Vegas, first with
the "protection" of a pimp and, when her pimp is killed, on her own. What I
know is only what I've learned over the years from a dear friend, Anne Hayman,
who has for seventeen years now run a kind of half-way house for LA hookers
who are trying to get out of the life and get clean, get some education, and
get a straight job. I have met a number of the women (and men) who have passed
through Ann's Mary Magdalene Project in Reseda, CA, and heard their stories.
They say it's a dangerous, scary life; most of them were abused as children,
thrown out of their homes if they did not run away, and have few options. Most
also have substance abuse problems of one sort or another. I could believe
that Sera in "Leaving Las Vegas" could have ended up in Ann's project. The
only thing she didn't seem to have was a drug problem, but maybe the
filmmakers decided that Ben's alcoholism was all the substance abuse the film
(and the filmgoers) could take--and they'd be right.

   I just want to say an admiring word about Mike Figgis, the writer and
director. What a beautiful job he has done. The shot making is superb,
appropriately edgy and phantasmagoric, with images that will haunt you. He
also composed the music, acts in it in a tiny role, and did a bunch of other
things as well. The novel from which it was taken was written by John O'Brien
who, it seems, knew whereof he wrote; he committed suicide before the film was
made. I predict flat out that Nicholas Cage will win the Oscar for best actor.
And he will have deserved it.

   For the WMNF Women's Show this is Linda Lopez McAlister on Women and Film.

<Linda Lopez McAlister is professor of women's studies and philosophy at the
University of South Florida.>

Copyright 1996. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint or reproduce this
review without permission of the author, mcaliste@chuma.cas.usf.edu.