Much to the surprise of the Hollywood studios that snubbed it in its infancy, Leaving Las Vegas has emerged as one of the most lucrative movies of 1995. The art-house film made for $3.5 million has earned nearly ten times that amount at the box office. Larry Gleason, president of theatrical distribution for MGM/United Artists, says Leaving Las Vegas is “one of the most successful specialized films of all time.”
According to most reviewers, Leaving Las Vegas is a gritty film about acceptance, a love story without a Pygmalion project. The New Yorker’s Terrence Rafferty writes, “The core of the relationship–its strength–is the lovers’ willingness to let each other be. They take one another for better or worse, knowing that their losers’ marriage of convenience can’t go anywhere, and understanding, as profoundly damaged people do, that it doesn’t have to.”
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Publications from Newsweek to Artforum have hailed Figgis for his refusal to succumb to Hollywood’s requisite happily-ever-after. Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers says, “All the signs point to another 12-step clichefest complete with agonizing therapy and gut wrenching rehab before the final fade to redemption….To its everlasting credit, Leaving Las Vegas refuses to conform.”
The book also develops Sera’s loneliness, something that the film neglects completely. At one point in the movie Sera plops down on the toilet and declares while she pees, “I’m just tired of being alone.” O’Brien at least gives Sera some pathos. In the book, Sera is actually evicted from her apartment–before she meets Ben–after befriending the woman next door. Sera’s relationship with her neighbor is necessarily contrived because Sera cannot reveal what she does for a living. But one night, after coming home with a black eye, she confesses her real work to her friend. The next day, the landlord gives her the boot.
He/she writes: “The way that you can really tell that this movie is a grad-student fantasy is the Elisabeth Shue character, who’s the first hooker I’ve ever seen who looks like she’s a field-hockey champion….She’s my husband Josh’s idea of a hooker, which is a gorgeous blond who listens attentively to everything you say, brings you snacks, worships you and then kisses you on your forehead and tucks you in….She’s like a more perfect Snow White, because she’ll even have anal sex.”
