2. Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Fired from his last screenwriting job and devoid of family and friends, Ben goes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. Through a number of circumstances, he makes the acquaintance of a hardened prostitute named Sera. Ben pays her money to talk with him, he doesn't want sex but she is not allowed to tell him to stop drinking and he is not allowed to criticise her profession. And thus follows a doomed relationship. Each of them really cannot accept the other's situation and this causes frustrations but Sera is there for Ben until the bitter end. An unbelievably depressing, nihilistic downer of a film. The man who wrote the novel that the film is based on - John O'Brien - committed suicide two weeks into production. I like the film on the basis that addiction and prostitution are not glamourised. For once, there is a film depicting alcohol as a terrible addiction that can kill you. I cannot remember any other films that portray alcohol as such a leech upon a human. The gang rape of Sera by college boys is exceedingly depressing viewing material and it shows that even a supposedly streetwise and hardened hooker can get into seriously dangerous situations. By tackling such raw material, director Mike Figgis manages to craft a beautiful doomed relationship which is highly romantic despite the base material he has to work with. Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue are both excellent in their roles and pack much depth into their characters. Desperately sad but the film has the balls to go all the way into the rock bottom of despair.