An aging showgirl struggles with an uncertain future when her Vegas show
reaches an end after a 30-year run.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Gia Coppola
Starring: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda
Song
Everyone loves a good comeback story, and in the movies that usually
comes in the form of a faded star making an unexpected return to the
limelight. Such is the case with Pamela Anderson in
Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl. While this indie will be seen by a mere fraction of the audience
Anderson once pulled in for Baywatch in the '90s, it has
brought her back into focus, even garnering her awards nominations. Coming
off the back of Lily James' portrayal of Anderson in a TV mini-series
revolving around the sex symbol's infamous leaked sex-tape, it's a
reminder that Anderson's star may have long faded but she's still
here.
It's admittedly a piece of stunt casting. Anderson plays Shelly, a
57-year-old Las Vegas showgirl whose life collapses when she learns that
"Le Razzle Dazzle", the show she's been a part of for over 30 years, is
about to come to an end. Featuring dancers whose attire ranges from skimpy
rhinestone-embossed brassieres to full nudity, Le Razzle Dazzle is a
victim of changing times. Like Playboy magazine and the erotic thrillers
Anderson appeared in during her Baywatch run, shows like Le
Razzle Dazzle are now simultaneously too sexist for some while too tame
for others. The public image of Anderson is tied to outdated
objectification, making her an ideal choice for such a role.
Coppola's film is one in a long line of movies about professionals
reckoning with the end of their careers. The best of such films is Chloe
Zhao's
The Rider, but the template most follow is that of Darren Aronofsky's
The Wrestler. The Last Showgirl often plays like a gender-swapped
rehash of The Wrestler, with a male athlete who relies on his physique replaced by a woman
similarly reliant on her looks. Once again we get the played-out subplot
of the protagonist attempting to reconnect with an estranged daughter,
played here by an under-used Billie Lourd. The scenes between
Shelly and her college-aged daughter are the film's weakest, as though
Coppola and screenwriter Kate Gersten felt obliged to include them
but couldn't figure out how to imbue them with honesty.
The Rider is devastating because it's about a professional
cut down in their prime. The Last Showgirl on the other hand
suffers from the same central issue as The Wrestler and
indeed another recent awards fave,
The Substance. It's difficult to sympathise with an aging performer coming to the end
of a career that that is based on youthful vitality. What did they expect,
to continue doing this forever? It's much easier to feel sorry for the
footballer who suffers a career-ending injury at 21 than the one forced to
retire at 38.
Anderson is neither as bad as you might expect if you're familiar with
her '90s work in turkeys like Barb Wire, nor as good as some over-enthusiastic commentators are making out. In
some scenes she's too self-conscious, her performance too mannered, but
she comes alive when's she's sharing the screen with a talented supporting
cast that includes Jamie Lee Curtis as a sassy aging cocktail
waitress and Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as young dancers
who think of Shelly as a maternal figure. The best acting in the film
comes from Dave Bautista as the show's stage manager Eddie, a
nice-but-dim lunk who shares some personal history with Shelly. The most
successful scenes feature Anderson and Bautista sharing tense but tender
moments, two performers once best known for their bodies rather than their
thespian abilities desperate to prove themselves. Bautista does a better
job than Anderson but oddly hasn't received any of the same
plaudits.
The Last Showgirl largely plays out in a series of
vignettes, many of which are individually interesting, but there's a lack
of strong connecting tissue. It's not so much a fully realised screenplay
as a series of ideas for scenes strung together. That's not to say it
isn't engaging. At a brief 85 minutes it zips along and the performances
of the ensemble are strong enough to paper over the lack of depth to some
degree. But despite Anderson's game efforts, Shelly remains frustratingly
one-dimensional. For a movie that so badly wants us to view an objectified
woman as a person rather than a fantasy figure, it simply doesn't do
enough to humanise its protagonist.
The Last Showgirl is on US VOD
now and in UK/ROI cinemas from February 28th.
