The Last Showgirl
The Last Showgirl
Starring Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song
Directed by Gia Coppola
Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) is the oldest showgirl in a long-running Vegas show, and serves as the mother figure for other dancers including Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) while being alienated from her real daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who resents her for having grown up on the Vegas strip and feeling second-fiddle to Shelly's career.
Shelly is also friends with former showgirl Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Eddie (Dave Bautista), the producer of the revue, who tells the girls that - after more than thirty years - the show is going to end. While Mary-Anne and Jodie seek other employment, Shelly sinks into a depression because all she's known is the show, and reflects on the bygone era that the show exhibits, as opposed to the new, explicit neo-burlesque acts that dot the Vegas landscape. When she gets a chance to reconcile with her daughter, Shelly takes advantage of it, but also realizes that she's a dinosaur now, and struggles with what lies ahead for her future.
2024 was the year of the comeback for classic actresses, most notably Demi Moore and her powerful performance in "The Substance" that focuses on how Hollywood tends to disregard actresses of a certain age in favor of younger, more attractive women. Moore earned her first Golden Globe award for her performance, and in her speech talked about how her own agent told her back in the day she was a "popcorn actress" that wouldn't get prestigious roles due to her attractiveness and stereotyped roles. Now it's Pamela Anderson's turn to step out of her own "popcorn" roles and tackle her most demanding role yet, and it's something more captivating than a comeback...it's a new beginning.
Sure, the film follows generic tropes of the daughter feeling abandoned by the mother and her career, but instead of delving into melodramatic melancholy there was a sweet sense of lost love between Shelly and Hannah, where Hannah calls her by her name instead of "mother" but not in a disrespectful way - moreso due to their strained relationship that wasn't entirely out of malice, just separation. Shelly always maintained an upbeat attitude that also makes for an interesting back-and-forth between her and Hannah, and something I noticed more than anything was every time Hannah arrived Shelly would ask "what are you doing here?" not as an accusatory tone but a positive one. When Hannah finally explodes on her mother, it feels like the pent-up anger that's been bubbling in her for years finally surfaces, and Shelly's response is heartbreaking.
More than that, Shelly struggles with the closing of the show that she dedicated her life to - even her daughter's, as Hannah resented being stuck in a car playing Game Boy while her mother danced - and wondering what is next. She attends an audition that is as awkward and uncomfortable to watch as when Pearl did her own audition in "Pearl," with essentially the same effect. What the director tells Shelly is extremely hard to hear, but in a way it's the truth - she's a relic, done with her prime, with nowhere to go. It's equally heartbreaking to see Shelly's reaction, and more kudos given to Anderson for pulling it off in a naturalistic way.
Speaking of natural, the majority of the film is shot with Pamela Anderson without makeup, which for a woman is like appearing nude for the world to see. Anderson is known as the buxom beauty from "Baywatch" and seeing her here is a shocking visual, but a welcomed one. She's no longer confined to being just a beauty, but allows her inner beauty to shine through in a thought-provoking performance that elevated her in my mind, as I too relegated her to just being a blonde bimbo style performer. She more than proved my wrong.
The Score: A+
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