Lay the Favorite (2012)

Taglines: How far can a losing shot take you?

Beth (Rebecca Hall) is be­com­ing bored with her life in Florida, doing stripteases and lap dances for pri­vate cus­tomers. Her dad, Jerry, tells her to fol­low her dream of mov­ing to Las Vegas, where she seeks hon­est work as a cock­tail wait­ress.

A young woman named Holly, who lives at the same Vegas motel, arranges for Beth to meet Dink Heimowitz, a pro­fes­sional gam­bler who fol­lows the fast-chang­ing odds on sport­ing events and em­ploys as­sis­tants at Dink, Inc., to lay big-money bets for him. Beth is in­trigued and it turns out she has a good mind for num­bers, eas­ily grasp­ing Dink’s sys­tem and be­com­ing his protégée and he views her as his lucky charm. When Beth be­gins ex­press­ing a more per­sonal in­ter­est in her much-older men­tor, Dink’s sharp-tongued wife, Tulip, lets it be known in no un­cer­tain terms that she wants Beth out of her hus­band’s life. As a re­sult from pres­sure from his wife, Dink lets Beth go.

A young jour­nal­ist from New York, Je­remy, meets Beth in the casino and they im­me­di­ately hit it off and she makes plans to move back to New York with him, hav­ing noth­ing left in Las Vegas to keep her there. She is hooked on the ex­cite­ment and in­come that gam­bling pro­vides and backs out sud­denly when­ever Dink, fac­ing a heavy los­ing streak with­out his lucky charm, asks her to come back to work for him.

When­ever Dink’s los­ing streak con­tin­ues even with Beth’s re­turn, he has a melt­down and fires every­one in his of­fice. Hav­ing enough, Beth goes to New York to be with Je­remy but ac­cepts a sim­i­lar job for a rival bookie called Rosie. Gam­bling is il­le­gal in New York and Dink wor­ries about Beth. Rosie then sets up a legal op­er­a­tion based in Curaçao and Beth goes down to help run the bet­ting. Rosie and his men are more in­ter­ested in drugs and hook­ers and Beth wants out. A New York gam­bler, Dave Green­berg, is in debt for sixty-thou­sand dol­lars and may be work­ing for the Feds.

Lay the Favorite (promoted as Lay the Favourite in the UK) is a 2012 American comedy-drama film starring Bruce Willis, Rebecca Hall, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joshua Jackson. Based on Beth Raymer’s memoir of the same title, the film follows a young, free-spirited woman as she journeys through the legal and illegal world of sports gambling. The film was directed by Stephen Frears.

Lay the Favorite (2012)

Directed by: Stephen Frears
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Bruce Willis, Vince Vaughn, Joel Murray, Hugo Armstrong, Corbin Bernsen, Laura Prepon, Rio Hackford, Thom Sesma, Adam Kozlowski, Rusty Meyers, Frank Grillo
Screenplay by: D.V. DeVincentis
Production Design by: Dan Davis
Cinematography by: Michael McDonough
Film Editing by: Mick Audsley
Costume Design by: Christopher Peterson
Set Decoration by: Michelle Schluter-Ford
Art Direction by: Erik Polczwartek
Music by: James Seymour Brett
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout, some sexual content, brief drug use, and nudity.
Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
Release Date: December 7, 2012

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