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WHAT SHE DID FOR LOVE Leaving Las Vegas is a fashionable ode to self-destruction. Directed and written by Mike Figgis, it's a doomy melody of warped nihilism: running throughout are languorous renditions of “Angel Eyes,” “It's a Lonesome Old Town” and “My One and Only” by Sting, “Lonely Teardrops” by Michael McDonald, and “Come Rain or Come Shine” from Don Henley. It's as if Nicolas Cage's Ben, a drunk out to literally drown himself in booze, is being coaxed along by a melancholic Dr. Kevorkian. Actually, he is: Elisabeth Shue as Sera, a prostie who comes to love him, shows her love by allowing Cage his freedom to kill himself; she even buys him a silver flask. It's true that if a boozer is bent on ruin there's not much any one can do to stop him, but it's also true that there'll be few around to dissuade him because drunks at this stage of their illness have only the bottle as companion. (The fate of Senator George McGovern's daughter.) But it's patently false that a non-drunk would offer Shue's level of complicity. Recovering alcoholics will likely howl too: an intervention after several days in the dry tank would be a truer proof of love. If the freedom to kill one's self is vogue now, it doesn't mean the choice is worthy of salute. There's something disturbing about Oscar and the critics thinking Cage is award-worthy. Has he been honored as message? Reading reviews by the better east coast critics, one doesn't sense they're feeling a warning's due; like the times, they appear to be indifferent to the skewed morality. Yet Cage does have scenes that come as close to actual experience as any actor playing a drunk: When he's guzzling down a pint at a strip joint, or when a baby whore fellates his wedding ring off, or when he breaks down and blacks out at the Vegas blackjack table, he's superior to the four drunks who inspired him—Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend, Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses, Dudley Moore's Arthur and Albert Finney in Under the Volcano. One possible misstep: would this kind of drunk buy Nabisco Shredded Wheat? (And is this intentional product placement?) In tight colored leather minis which enlarge her thighs, Shue resembles Farrah Fawcett, though she doesn't have the million dollar bleached teeth. She's got some remarkably gritty lines and confessions, especially one about mouthwash, and Fonda fans might see a bit of Klute, in which Bree speaks to a headshrinker, just like Sera. I've never met a drunk, including the one I used to see in my mirror, who didn't wallow in self-pity, who wasn't in some way or another seething in anger. But these are temporary conditions: after a lengthy drying out, the mind and blood clear and logic returns, the pity and wrath dissipate, and most of us go on to productive lives. Granted, we're tired of back-from-the-bottle stories—AA has never been a movie-friendly subject—and that's partially why Absolutely Fabulous has reached a highly receptive audience: Edie and Patsy flaunt the edge in ways we wish we could too, because we'd all like to abandon the shackles of social constraints. We know, though, why we don't: terrible physical and relationship prices are paid while under the drama of influence. What Figgis is pouring down is injurious fatalism—that life's not worth it, that love means that a co-dependent never has to say she's sorry for helping kill the person she loves. I'll bet Robert Downey Jr. is glad he never met Sera. Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
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