'The Last Showgirl' Review: Give Pamela Anderson Her Flowers!
Gia Coppola's latest beautifully portrays the tragedy of being an aging woman
Boy, did I not realize how much I needed to see The Last Showgirl. The hours after the outcome of this year’s Presidential election left me feeling … depressed, to say the absolute least. The last thing I wanted to do was go see a movie. But, as I mentioned in my post from yesterday, seeing movies can be a coping mechanism and, in many ways, shows up reflections of ourselves. And Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is 100% about women reflecting on themselves, their life choices, and what it means when you’re no longer perceived as desirable in this world.
Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) is a 50something showgirl who has spent the last 30 years being part of a Vegas show known as the Razzle Dazzle. When she’s told that the show will finally be closing, it causes Shelly to evaluate what she’s going to do next, and if the last 30 years of her life yielded anything of value.
Director Gia Coppola and writer Kate Gersten craft an exploration of Las Vegas away from the neon and glitz of the Strip. Shelly and her fellow Razzle Dazzle dancers give off a facsimile of Old Hollywood elegance on-stage, only to return home to the nomadic, makeshift family they’ve created. Shelly’s home is like a time capsule, filled with old-fashioned furniture and a projector used to play videos of former dance routines. Shelly is a modernized Norma Desmond — without the murdering — reminiscing about a time she didn’t live through, but that felt was represented in her show.
Pamela Anderson is perfect as Shelly, and the actress has said there are definite parallels to the character and her own life. Anderson, still utterly gorgeous at the age of 57, doesn’t play Shelly as a ditz or overly naive, but a hopeless romantic who is questing for respect. As Shelly tells her friend Eddie (Dave Bautista), the manager for the show, the spotlight gave her power and it’s hard to give that up. Considering Anderson’s own life — a woman who struggled for respect and autonomy, and who was always boiled down to her looks — you hear the passion in every line reading. Shelly has made choices, whether good or bad is strictly for her to decide, but she regrets none of them.
Shelly is a character desperate for a different time, not to go back to her youth but to go back to a time of presumed elegance and sophistication. She reminds everyone about how the Razzle Dazzle is a part of the glittering theater world of the Folies Bergere. She may not have been cut out to be a Rockette, but the Vegas showgirl is an icon all her own. But it’s hard for Shelly to inspire others to have the same appreciation for the past as her. She’s cruelly reminded that she’s no longer young, and that the Strip has changed. The hardest person to convince is her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who blames the show for her mother’s absence in her life.
At the same time, Gersten’s script is uncompromising about the ways women are persecuted once they pass 40. Shelly appears to have few skills outside of being on-stage, as does her friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), an equally past her prime cocktail waitress. Her other two friends, Jodie and Mary-Anne (Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song, respectively) are similarly struggling because, though younger, they’re placed in highly sexualized auditions that focus on youth and exploitation. Gersten’s script places all of these issues on the same footing. This is the price of doing business as a woman, particularly in the aesthetic-focused world of Vegas.
Anderson is the bright light that every gravitates to, but the rest of the cast is equally stellar, particularly Curtis as the acerbic Annette. Where Anderson has some semblance of her shit together, Curtis plays Annette as a wanton woman still living in the unplanned world of her twenties. As she tells everyone, she doesn’t have a “501K” and plans to work until she dies. Curtis gives an equally fearless performance, complete with a fantastic dance to “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Where Anderson is softness and flounce, Curtis is steel and they complement each other beautifully.
Shipka and Song also do wonderful work in smaller roles. The former is the little duckling of the group, desperate to find a mother within Shelly due to her own’s inability to appreciate her job. Shipka is perfectly cast for the babe in the woods. Song, as Mary-Anne, is the more realistic of the group. She reminds Shelly to face reality while simultaneously struggling to find her own space in life in her thirties. And don’t forget Dave Bautista, who is so vulnerable and kindhearted as Eddie. As the show’s simultaneous manager and protector, every line delivery Bautista gives is inflected with sadness and yearning. We do not respect him as an actor enough, just like Anderson.
The Last Showgirl is a story of nostalgia and reminiscing, perfect for those living through this current timeline. Pamela Anderson proves she has serious chops and it’s exciting to see where her career goes with the cultural reevaluation she’s getting today. Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, winners all in here. This is one that feels like it understands who I am, and will no doubt find its fanbase in the lovers and dreamers who miss a time gone by.