Leaving Las Vegas

2.5/4 stars

Readers of my other blog will remember my affinity for the Pogues song Fairytale of New York, which is about the reminiscence of an Irish couple’s early idealism faced with the harsh realities of poverty and addiction that they endure. Leaving Las Vegas is a film that is very much like that song in spirit. Both capture, with equal honesty and intensity, the joys and horrors of a tumultuous relationship. Indeed, one of the things that impressed me most about Leaving Las Vegas is the tender sweetness of the love story. Many films have demonstrated that it is not that difficult to show strife and dysfunction, but this one tempers it with an alluring yet realistic vision of potential happiness for its characters.

The cinematography and the soundtrack are smooth yet expressive. The camera work goes from intimate to distant, lucid to hazy depending on the needs of the scene, entrancing the viewer with powerful images, melodic delivery and calculated reticence. I found the various love songs that the soundtrack calls upon to be especially effective; they can convey the dreamy quality of romance, but also the uncomfortable spiraling of a relationship that is out of control. Actors Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue do a good job of keeping even the happy moments tense and ill at ease, and the terrible ones retain a faint optimism.

Still, even with everything that works, the film is not perfect. What makes the aforementioned song so enjoyable is that despite its bitter outcome, it still has beauty as a song. The film is not so graceful. Captivating as it may be, Leaving Las Vegas proves clumsy whenever it tries to do anything of any real subtlety. The tragedies of the film are always grotesque, they only vary in scale. Even when their unhappiness is beneath the surface, it is monstrous and unlivable. The film gains points for being unflinching, but loses points in realism. The lovers say awful things to one another for no apparent reason. Too much of the emotion is expressed by the characters simply stating the way they are. “I came here to drink myself to death,” says Nicholas Cage. “I’ll go back to my glamorous life of being alone. All I have to come home to is a bottle of mouthwash to get the taste of come out of my mouth. I’m tired of being alone,” says Elisabeth Shue, when Nicholas Cage suggests that he might leave. Such lines powerful but aren’t convincing. The actors lack nothing in conviction, but their nuance leaves room for improvement.