How can I be the ONLY one bothered by this???

Laughable. This is Hollywood. Ben didn't portray a full=blown alcoholic entirely, but he pulled it off satisfactorily- alcoholics at his level have diarrhea and throw up blood all the time- Not pleasant to read, yet alone see on screen. The shakes and his wanting for vodka are only the minor sympoblic things---him drink driving with vodka, that is common with alcos. It messes everything up.

With Sera, I can only say the same thing- Hollywood glamorization and all that. Would you watch this movie if Sera was depicted as some burnt out heroin addict, which sadly, most prostitutes are? You make a good, but obvious point.

I kind of got that feeling too.

These characters were much too glamourized.

Limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: directly proportional to its awesomeness.

I've seen plenty of smoking hot prostitutes through my times in Vegas. Elisabeth Shue isn't even a Vegas 6.

I have a friend who lives in vegas, who I have visited many times. we were just talking one day & he mentioned how vegas is a different animal from most places. while sera was a "street walker" she was not a quote on quote "cheap hooker" she was more less a "call girl" (hence her pimp in the beginning introducing sera to high end clientele). but for some of the scenes to bring sera & ben together, they had to cross paths on the street.

my friend also noted that you will see 'high end' women walking the strip in vegas. but that's mostly when they don't have themselves booked for the evening & they are just scoping out the town. *most* high end women stay to the hotels/clubs/casinos where they are not as easily spotted.

while me & my friend NEVER entertained the thought of using women in this way, its something that is inescapable part of vegas. if you're a male & in vegas long enough, you will be approached.
and from my own experience, just seeing it w/ my own two eyes... the cheap hookers hang out on the corners. the call girls tend to stay indoors.

To your assumption on vegas prostitution... most of these high end women are absolutely gorgeous! and these are not all stupid women. this is a big money industry. im just guessing, but im sure the reason a lot of these women get in to it is not because they are low moral sex feinding women... its because they can make more money in one night than they can in 3 months w/ a nice career. SOME of these women are career women w/ good 9-5 jobs. there is this misconception that they do it for the pleasure. some may, but i believe it is very circumstantial. my friend works at a PR firm and one of his former co-workers confided to him that she would do this from time to time to help set aside for her son's college fund. she told him that she could work twice a month & pay off 4 semesters of his college.

she wasn't some degenerate... she was a single mom, with a good job, who wanted more for her son. im not trying to make an excuse for her... it think its a dangerous, raunchy business. im just simply saying some of these women aren't just whores in the conventional sense.

my friend noted that she wasn't working in the mail room at his firm... she worked in the marketing dept & had a degree from UC Berkley.

in summation: sera wasn't a cheap $20 hooker giving out BJ's.

Just like everything else, there is a lot of variety when it comes to women who practice the world's oldest profession. At the low end of the spectrum, you have the desperate, dirty, and drug addicted ones working the corner. Not attractive and usually can get them dirt cheap. Shue was high end and even for the time was probably undercharging for her services. See the whore Spitzer was banging...hot and expensive.

“There are no ordinary moments. There is always something going on.” – Peaceful Warrior

maybe she wasn't really a las vegas hooker. everything else seemed realistic maybe she was an invention of bens mind guiding him to the afterlife

There are plenty of good looking escorts in Las Vegas. I know a few personally. So, that's that...

LOL. I don't know what side of town you live but In Vegas, NY, Chicago you have street walkers and then you have "high end" hookers. They do go to the gym, dentist, and expensive hair dressers. They own expensive condo's and cars. Bottom line, they are still hookers. In the same sense you have street thugs and you have the Dapper Dons. No matter how you slice it though they are low life's in the end.