Leaving Las Vegas

Name: Leaving Las Vegas
Genre: Romance, Drama
Released: 1995
Duration: 111 min
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands, Richard Lewis, Steven Weber

Mike Figgis19951h 51mRomance, Drama

Why we chose it

Nicolas Cage won an Oscar for this role, and John O’Brien, who wrote the novel, killed himself two weeks after selling the film rights. Mike Figgis could have made a film about getting sober or a film about despair, but what he shot on Super 16mm in the bars of Las Vegas is a love story.

Synopsis

Ben Sanderson has drunk away his Hollywood job and his family, so he takes his severance pay, gets in the car and heads for Las Vegas to finish the job by drinking himself to death. There he almost runs over Sera, a young woman who works the city’s streets. A few days later he pays her for an hour but only wants to talk, and Sera lets him move in with her, though each of them sets the other one condition.