Pamela Anderson delivers the performance of her career in Gia Coppola’s drama. Here’s our The Last Showgirl review.
Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl would make an excellent double-bill with Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 sensation The Substance. Granted, you won’t see Pamela Anderson birth a younger version of herself in Coppola’s film, but The Last Showgirl might leave you pondering about aging as a woman and how showbusiness only values youth and beauty.
Anderson plays Shelly, a 57-year-old showgirl who has performed at the same revue show in Las Vegas for the last three decades. All good things must come to an end and so does Shelly’s show, but this is the only life and work she has ever known. Las Vegas isn’t friendly to women of a certain age as it is and Shelly becomes increasingly worried about her future.
Throw in Shelly’s estranged daughter and you’ve got quite the mess, but thankfully, The Last Showgirl is anything but. Writer Kate Gersten has adapted her own play, Body Of Work, for the screen and Coppola’s and the result is a film that somehow feels like a relic and a sort-of-classic at the same time, purposefully so. The Last Showgirl is a familiar story told with the utmost respect and sincerity, and is aided by genuine, vulnerable performances.
That Coppola’s movie feels like an ancient artefact from another era is a compliment. Just like Shelly is now an outsider in her industry after times have changed, The Last Showgirl also represents the movies of yesteryears. Coppola never tells us when exactly The Last Showgirl is set, and Shelly still listens to music on a portable cassette player. It could be a clue of the setting, but it could also further show how Shelly is stuck in the past.
Anderson, as you may have heard, is a true revelation here. She’s rarely been better but she’s also rarely been given the opportunity to show this kind of work. “You’re gonna be fine and I’m just gonna have to disappear,” she tells the show’s manager on an awkward date, reflecting on how women are still left with nothing while men are able to navigate the troubles of a modern society and work culture with ease.
Anderson shows real courage as a performer, digging into the uglier, more uncomfortable aspects of growing old as a woman in an industry that makes its money on beauty and sex appeal. Shelly is told she’s not sexy, meaning she has no value in this business anymore and the scene is just as heartbreaking as it sounds. Coppola and Anderson paint a portrait of a woman who devoted her entire life to the one thing she was good at, but in the end, it let her down anyway.
Perhaps it’s a metaphor for how Hollywood has treated Anderson over the years. Despite being one of the biggest stars to come out of Baywatch, she was often relegated to the role of a blonde bimbo. Recently, her tumultuous relationship with Tommy Lee was adapted into a Disney+ miniseries, but Anderson wasn’t consulted in it. Once again, the industry used her for its own benefit but never thought to ask her about her own story. The Last Showgirl feels like Anderson’s way of saying the show must go on and she’s fighting back.
If Anderson’s Shelly is soft and feminine, Jamie Lee Curtis, playing Shelly’s best friend Annette, is sharp and prickly. Annette, a former showgirl herself, has moved on to cocktail waitressing and it’s a future that might soon become a reality for Shelly. While Curtis’ outrageous, loud performance often feels out of place in The Last Showgirl, the juxtaposition is interesting. Annette has made being a cocktail waitress another form of performance, but it’s not one that immediately suits Shelly. So what’s a girl to do?
The Last Showgirl can be a little too simplistic and straightforward with its themes, if I’m being picky. Everything is laid out for the audience to take in and the film’s ethereal quality, with the slightly fuzzy edges of the frame, feels more distracting than artistic. Billie Lourd isn’t given much to do aside from playing the cliched estranged daughter, but even with all of this, The Last Showgirl hits all the right notes where it matters. Welcome back, Pamela Anderson. This time, more on your own terms.
The Last Showgirl is in cinemas 28th February.
