Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue make the perfect self-destructive couple in this tragic romance set in Sin City. Some slight writing choices are the only weak points of this otherwise great movie with nice photography and music which balances to perfection drama, romance, and dark humour.

Screenwriter Ben Sanderson Nicolas Cage) doesn’t know any more if he started drinking because her wife left him or his wife left him because he started drinking. Nevertheless, at this point in time there is no turning back. His alcohol abuse and erratic behaviour has isolated him from the rest of his peers. There is nothing else for him to do than drink himself to death. The perfect place to do that: Las Vegas. His perfect company, an angel in the middle of this city of sin: a prostitute named Sera (Elisabeth Shue).

Nicolas Cage won the Oscar for his performance, stellar throughout the entire movie but probably more than enough to earn it thanks to the first 20-minute prelude. In those we see all the different stages of alcoholism that he will afterwards spread through the film: euphoria, depression, abstinence syndrome, rage… All that while we contemplate the disdain from the several people that surround him. They might seem selfish and uncaring, but it is sort of implied that such behaviour has been going along for a prolonged period of time making their attitude towards him a bit more justified.

Regardless, it is difficult seeing how much Ben is being ignored and left out to his own luck and it isn’t until he finds Sera that his downwards spiral won’t be challenged. It is impossible to not see how much Elisabeth Shue’s character loves Ben. The way how he looks at him, even at his most vulnerable times, as well as suffers with and for him as he proceeds with his plan shows her undoubtful feelings for him. She may say that she is not helping him but instead taking advantage of him to counteract her loneliness, but the truth is that her love towards him and towards herself because of it grows as the film progresses albeit some controversial choices favouring the self-inflicted damage of Ben.

At the same time, it feels like a little bit more of exposition in Ben’s character would have enhanced our empathy towards him. Solving his past issues with a vague and inconclusive quote regarding his relationship with drinking and one freak out scene remembering a traumatic moment of her life (when her wife left with her daughter) seems too little. It is understood that the focal point is put into observing the demise of an alcoholic but nevertheless it may have helped to understand the character. This could have been covered by using the limited and unnecessary space dedicated to Sera’s relationship with her pimp (Julian Sands), her character is fleshed out enough in the “therapy” scenes.

The film also excels in various other departments. The shooting style and framing, once again specially in the prelude, perfectly captures the intoxicated and deranged mind of our main protagonist in his drinking sprees. The photography, once we get to Las Vegas, and more concretely in the few scenes shot in the desert motel where the use of natural light shines. The make-up work on Cage also deserves praise as it perfectly shows the external damage that heavy drinking causes, such as the sweatiness, extreme eye bags and yellowish skin tone. And finally, the use of music, very jazzy both in the score (composed by the also writer and director Mike Figgis) and soundtrack sets up the perfect chaotic and romantic mood for our doomed couple.

At the end of the day, this movie can be perceived as a tragic build up to the saddest love scene ever. With great acting by the sluggish and erratic alcoholic Nicolas Cage and the infatuated Elisabeth Shue supported perfectly by the rest of elements of the film, we can only pinpoint the potential for more attention into the past of our main protagonist in order to understand better his inner demons as the only aspect that would have made this already really good film a bit better.