The Last Showgirl
When Shelly (Pamela Anderson) is stood up by the 'back door Johnny' she'd planned to cook dinner for, she invites her fellow showgirls Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and former Le Razzle Dazzle dancer turned cocktail waitress Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) over instead. Her guests are surprised that she's also invited their stage manager, Eddie (Dave Bautista), who sadly informs them that after a 38 year run, their show is closing. He obviously cares and tells Shelly she's a legend, but in reality she is "The Last Showgirl."
Laura's Review: B-
Much has been made of Pamela Anderson's performance in director Gia Coppola's ("Palo Alto," "Mainstream") latest, but while she is affecting, this is hardly a revelatory turn other than in its contrast to the Baywatch persona thrust upon her by Hollywood. Yes, Pamela Anderson can act and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of her in future. Writer Kate Gersten (TV's 'Mozart in the Jungle,' 'Schmigadoon!') has plenty to say about gender disparity in Las Vegas employees, but her narrative often causes whiplash with its contradictory behavior, her lead character's sacrifice of her relationship with her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd) for a waning spotlight difficult to sympathize with, despite what it has to say about societal gender expectations. So, too, is it difficult to understand Hannah's last act embrace of her mother, a change of heart shared by colleagues with on again off again on again attitudes toward her.
Coppola uses an early flash forward to illustrate how the world has passed Shelly by. She's auditioning for a new show, all done up in an abbreviated sequined top hat and tails get up, her responses to the casting director (an uncredited Jason Schwartzman) awkward, revealing her nerves. When asked if she has a number prepared, she responds grandiosely that she's given her music to 'the maestro,' then proceeds to offer an amateurish, subpar routine. Coppola will revisit the scene later, revealing Mary-Anne, awaiting her own turn, having to drag an argumentative Shelly off the stage, leaving us to wonder just what happened to those plans to move closer to Hannah.
We see Shelly's life from a back stage point of view, the actual Le Razzle Dazzle show saved for the film's climax. The legendary showgirl has her payroll deducted when she snags her costume on a door on the way to the stage, an income already depleted, we'll learn, because a circus has taken over Le Razzle Dazzle's weekend show times. Yet while young Jodie treats the job like a stepping stone and Mary-Anne as merely a paycheck, Shelly expounds on its greatness, looking back on the days when an airline dubbed them its ambassadors, flying them around the world for glitzy photo ops. 'We are descended from Paris Lido culture,' she informs her proteges, who probably have no idea what she's referring to. She firmly believes the show could be restored to its former glory if only a little money were spent on marketing, promotional photos from the 80's still in use ('Aren't you in those?' asks Mary-Anne with no trace of sarcasm).
Then one day Shelly arrives at her modest home to find Hannah standing in her driveway. The woman is ecstatic, a contrast to her visitor's more subdued greeting. They'll share a drink, Shelly enthusing over everything her daughter, about to graduate and hoping for a photography career, has to say, but Hannah refuses an invite to dinner, suddenly anxious to leave. (This will be followed by a ridiculous scene of Shelly leaving a voicemail for Hannah, panicking when her smoke detector goes off and throwing it in the toilet.) She'll be more confrontational at their next meeting, demanding to know just what made Le Razzle Dazzle more important than her, her mother having allowed her to be brought up by people whose relationship to them is never made clear. Shelly will hear the same from the girl's father, who, notably, didn't share in her upbringing. And when Hannah takes Shelly up on her offer to see one of her last shows, her comments are withering ('it's nothing but a cheap nudie show'). This drama will cause Shelly to turn her back on Jodie, who views her as a mother figure, when the young woman shows up at her door distraught, Shelly's behavior bizarrely dismissive.
While we witness Jodie embracing the lewder aspects of Las Vegas shows after attending that circus which is nudging them out, a 'dirty' circus featuring a topless plate spinner (Gypsy Wood), Shelly's situation is reflected in Annette's, the cocktail waitress let go early in favor of younger colleagues. Jamie Lee Curtis, her face looking like tanned leather exaggerated by the frosted pale lipstick Annette favors, creates a coarser, more hardened survivor than Shelly's uber feminine persona, but is no less moving, especially when, clad in her sequined usherette waitress outfit, she mounts a small casino platform to relive her showgirl days, lost in a slow, mesmerizing dance to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart.'
"The Last Showgirl" is a sad portrait of a woman hanging onto the faded glory of her past within the glitzy spectacle of a disposable culture. The film itself isn't as good as the characters inhabiting it, Anderson, Curtis, Shipka, Song and Bautista ensuring we'll remember them.
Roadside Attractions gave a 1 week awards qualifying run of "The Last Showgirl" in LA on 12/13/24. It opens wide on 1/10/25.
