The Last Showgirl Review: Pamela Anderson Has Never Shone So Much (and not just for spangles)
A Poignant and very human avenue of sunset, in the shimmering and empty world of Las Vegas shows is the story at the center of The Last Showgirl, starring an intense Pamela Anderson who for the role of Shelley got his first Golden Globe nomination at 58 and never shone so much on the scene (and not only for spangles). In the cast, together with the protagonist, there are Jamie Lee Curtis as longtime friend Annette, Dave Bautista who plays Eddie, Billie Lourd in the role of Shelley’s daughter, Hannah, Kiernan Shipa in the role of the young colleague Jodie, and Brenda Song in the role of the most skilled Marie-Anne. There is something that Pamela Anderson and Mickey Rourke have in common. The dazzling lights of the spotlight, television or cinema that they were. Morbidly seduced by the two bodies and faces then young and highly attractive, both for “the eye” of the camera, as well as the public.
The same lights then blurred, gradually softer and finally vanished, since concentrated elsewhere on new aesthetics and stars of the moment, therefore meteors. Following the fall and inevitably the oblivion. How to return to the limelight, if not through a real wound processing path, generated by all that darkness and that now vanished imagination? Rourke is offered the opportunity by three big names: Darren Aronofsky, Robert Siegel, and Bruce Springsteen. It is the case of The Wrestler, winner of the Golden Lion at the 65 ° edition of the Venice Film Festival. Seventeen years later, also to Pamela Anderson, the historical, if not legendary, face and body of Baywatch – and not only – the same opportunity presents itself. Where, however, The Wrestler provides a trio of men only, The Last Showgirl comes to life thanks to three female figures: the director Gia Coppola, the screenwriter Kate Gersten, and the leading interpreter Pamela Anderson.
The Last Showgirl Review: The Story Plot
Shelley Gardner is 57 years old and has been working as a show dancer for three decades in The Razzle Dazzle, one of the flagship events of one of the Las Vegas casinos. Despite the obvious limits dictated by age (now she has a minor role, leaving the younger colleagues in the central position), she continues to believe in the magic of the entertainment world, perhaps because she has basically known only that in life, even at the expense of the family. When it is announced that the show will close its doors within two weeks due to a drop in revenue, Shelley is in crisis because, for personal reasons, it will be difficult for her to find another similar engagement (moreover, as she is done present at some point, her dance numbers are not particularly impressive on a technical level), and perhaps he will have to resign himself to being a waitress like his best friend Annette, ex-dancer who was at the time ousted from the group for age-related reasons. As she prepares for the scenes, she tries to replenish the relationship with her daughter Hannah, basically raised by family friends because her mother was too busy with the show.
In a disused Las Vegas, where the golden times have passed for a while, everything changes and also the most popular and well-known show, The Ruzzle Duzzle, all soubrette, feathers, winks and sequins must close their doors leaving all the dancers who made it great starting with what was once the most acclaimed star: Shelley Gardner. A woman who has been very beautiful and very admired, and now, closer to 60 than 50, finds herself in the uncomfortable position of having to redesign a life that until then revolved all around that ephemeral happiness that, however, arrived punctually every evening to make you forget everything wrong. Shelley, therefore, and with her all the others, finds herself not only having to imagine a life elsewhere but also to make a bitter balance of her life and the decades in which she was too blinded by the spotlight to notice how expensive they were. At this complicated juncture, Shelley also finds herself confronting a daughter left alone to pursue dreams of glory and with the choices made in the past.
The Last Showgirl Review and Analysis
What’s under the lights, the luxury, the unbridled fun of an amusement park city like Las Vegas, devoted to ensuring entertainment of all kinds 24 hours a day? What keeps this shiny and enjoyable car going where everything is spectacle and exaggerated? The answer comes from The Last Showgirl. Gia Coppola’s film, following Shelley’s human story, takes us behind the perpetually lit lights of the Las Vegas stages, in the dressing rooms of beautiful women who live thanks to their charm and their charisma and who, once on stage, they can no longer get off even when reality, the passing of time and the needs of the showbiz ferociously drop the curtain on the suddenly sad spectacle of their lives without direction. Through Shelley’s history and gaze, we also discover the stories of other women of different generations and characters who have chosen to live by making a show and who, at a certain point, find themselves having to quickly devise a plan B. A challenge is still possible for the younger ones who, at the cost of some compromise, will somehow manage to stay afloat. But what will become of the most adult women?
Even in the world of entertainment and indeed much more than in other fields, especially in a profession such as that of soubrette that makes charm and attractiveness an indispensable skill, remaining out of work over 50 years means being in front of a mountain to climb: to redesign one’s life now channeled into tracks that have followed for decades and feel their own, and to reinvent a company that always runs too fast for those who have already spent the greatest energies. Pamela Anderson gives the public an interpretation that surprises and makes her Shelley poignant and credible in her stubborn naivety, while she pulls the sums of her life and realizes, perhaps for the first time, that she has paid a very high price to chase her dreams and inclinations. A balance in red which, however, is not repented and which proudly claims. For the last Las Vegas showgirl, choices and mistakes, joys and sorrows, are a unique package that cannot be separated and that she carries with her, aware that she has only chosen to try the road to her happiness.
That this, at the end of the path, turned out to be too fleeting, is an awareness that arrives painful but that does not make Shelley retreat an inch, nor does it make her doubt her consciously made choices. The director delves into the psychology of a woman with great dreams and a special but fatuous life, to live which she has also renounced her being a mother. Hannah, the daughter who became an adult without her, presents herself as an account to be settled on her conscience, but in the close final confrontation it will not come to equalize him at all, while Shelley continues to choose her way, to pursue now prohibitive desires and, in essence, still chasing that illusion of lights, music, applause, admiration, which make everything else tolerable, and to get hurt by listening to the fierce comments of those who, in the end, put it in front of the reality they don’t want to see. A ferocity to which she will always respond with pride and irrepressible determination not to leave the world of her dreams and her only true life. A sincere film that also comes to be rough, but always softened by the very human frailties of its protagonist.
“The Last Showgirl” presents itself as a cinematographic work of great emotional impact, centered on Shelley’s life, interpreted by a surprisingly intense Pamela Anderson. The film follows the path of this protagonist who, after thirty years of dedication and success in the world of Las Vegas shows, finds herself forced to face a painful reality: the definitive closure of the shows managed by Eddie (Dave Bautista). The narrative stands out for its ability to effectively convey the desolation and sense of bewilderment that affect Shelley. The merit must be equally divided between a well-structured script from Kate Gersten and the interpretation of the Anderson, which manages to create an immediate empathic bond with the viewer. Her performance reveals unexpected nuances and a dramatic depth that transcends the public image of the actress. This moment of existential crisis paradoxically becomes an opportunity for rebirth for the protagonist. Shelley is forced to reconsider her identity outside the stage and to rebuild fundamental relationships, in particular that with her daughter Hannah, played by Billie Lourd. It is interesting to observe how the film explores the complexity of family relationships compromised by the needs of a totalizing career.
In her journey of personal rediscovery, Shelley can count on Annette’s support, interpreted by an almost unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis. The veteran actress offers a remarkable performance in the role of a loyal friend who, while facing economic difficulties herself, remains a fundamental point of reference. Their relationship represents one of the most touching aspects of the film, highlighting the importance of female solidarity in times of crisis. The supporting cast contributes significantly to the emotional richness of the film. Kiernan Shipka, as Jodie and Brenda Song, is Mary-Anne. They play ballet with colleagues who have become friends with Shelley. Their presence underlines the importance of the community that is formed in working contexts, especially in competitive environments such as that of ’entertainment. The Last Showgirl transcends the simple story of a career at the end to become a broader reflection on identity, the passage of time, and the ability to reinvent ourselves when circumstances force us to change. The film sensitively addresses the issue of aging in a sector that glorifies youth and ephemeral beauty, offering an honest look at the challenges facing those who have dedicated their life to such a physical and visual art.
Shelley’s is the role that marks the professional transformation of Pamela Anderson, who had almost withdrawn from the scene when she received the offer to play the protagonist. A more mature part for an actress who has always been seen only as a sex symbol and has rarely been able to show interpretative talents that went beyond mere physical performance. The anger of the dancer forced to retire is therefore a variant of Anderson’s true acting frustrations, who over the course of an hour and a half proves to have the necessary tools for a new phase of her career, already recognized during the season of prizes with weight nominations. Less powerful on an allegorical level, since his professional career has never been marked by particular difficulties, but no less amazing is it Jamie Lee Curtis as Annette, avatars of those who do not give up despite age-related preconceptions of the industry. A must also for Dave Bautista, now more and more comfortable in dramatic parts and less in purely action parts.
In the same period in which Francis Ford Coppola, grandfather of the director, he made Megalopolis, overflowing hymn to creative freedom in an era where this is no longer well seen (to the point that Francis had to finance it himself), Gia Coppola came out with a more traditional film, but in her equally bitter odo, the portrait of an era that is ending, yet another victim of the mixture of hedonism and capitalism that is embodied by Las Vegas, the city of sin where dreams, attracted there by the illusion of glamor and easy winning, go to die. Slowly but surely, like Shelley’s career, which under the chic zest of the fake French name conceals a basic sadness that has been evident since the first shot. Until a conclusion that is in all respects the end of the dream, even if for the interpreter of The Last Showgirl this is, on paper, only the beginning.
In balance between fiction and reality, Anderson in The Last Showgirl he wears the seductive clothes, yet faded by Shelley, a showgirl now close to retirement, or rather by the wayside, who for three decades performed in The Razzle Dazzle, a classic French-style burlesque show, offered by a casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip. Times have changed, however, and so have the dances. What was once sexy is now only retro, and what is retro must be abandoned or, worse, condemned to oblivion. Here, because Shelley will have to say goodbye once and for all to the dazzling lights in the spotlight, to sequined clothes, and the symbolic and attractive strength of the stage. While aware that for the show, he has always given up everything. First to the family and then to itself, and it is only with the lights off that the darkness will come back to find it and so the past, which it has not forgotten at all, remaining waiting, alert and curious.
Where the wrestler now on the avenue of sunset played by Rourke, receives visits from his forgotten daughter, exclusively at the acceptance of the end of a long period of life made of excesses and abuses to say goodbye, Shelley Gardner also comes back to clash with reality of the family. The one who never wanted to call her “mother”, limiting herself to the name, Shelley, because she is fleeing the role, but not on the side, complete with spangles and naked bodies. Is it easy to accept the end, despite the time spent and the body changed more and more ferociously and evidently by the latter? No, rarely. Gia Coppola, now in her third directorial feature film, later Palo Alto is Mainstream strong in a script of rare sensitivity and audacity, it starts from here: from our inability to accept the end, deluded in the face of a cartoonistic and tragic immortality at the same time. The body-like memory crumbles, from here on the anger and love, which, although forgotten, remains, taking care of the wounds, waiting to reveal itself.
American cinema has always been very attentive to that now flourishing trend, called “From rags to stars“, from stables to stars. Inevitably, his exact opposite is also attractive, therefore the downside, from the stars to the stables. From the dazzling lights to the big blind. However, by taking a quick look at the real, inside and beyond the show, we are immediately aware of the meta-cinematographic and documentary strength of this reflection. We have always observed the acceptance and non-acceptance of the end, criticizing this or that other star, because we are unaware of anger, disappointment, and frustration. The Last Showgirl, which rests entirely on the two tests that can be defined as now phenomenal by Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis, he does not spare himself in terms of anger, showing the psychological and then physical complexities of abandonment and thus of that seductive force in the fundamental principle and now increasingly faded. On the contrary, Gia Coppola’s film is not kind, extremely raw, rigorous, and attentive in the face of the violence of anger, in the darkness of the tragedy and so to the lights of that love that has never vanished, only a refugee elsewhere, waiting for the great return.
If it is true that with memory we return to the unfortunate and troubled To Leslie by Michael Morris, mainly concerning the great work on linguistics and aesthetics of an America White Trash never really hidden by sequins, it is equally true that the twin of The Last Showgirl can only be The Wrestler by Darren Aronofsky. Twilight cinema is hard yet sweet on the acceptance of the end and the possibility of a new beginning. All this speaks volumes about why Shelly made the choices she made, and without judging her actions, Gia Coppola lays bare a woman who has gone against an already predetermined narrative that required her, as a mother, to give up her career for a more conventional job and suited to the role of a parent. Consistent to the end, Shelly, in apologizing for not being there for her daughter, reiterates her right to choose which version of herself to be or not. It’s all bitter, sad, questionable but damned concrete and true and Gia Coppola knows when to remove poetry and aim for raw reality.
The Last Showgirl Review: The Last Words
The Last Showgirl, the first real test as the protagonist of Pamela Anderson, directed by Gia Coppola, is a disenchanted, raw but poetic fresco behind the scenes of a Las Vegas of imperfect and sometimes broken dreams, in the gaze of a dancer in crisis at the news that the (mediocre) show in which he has performed for thirty years, is about to close. Pamela Anderson gets back into play artistically and manages to embody disillusionment, imperfection, and melancholy assisted by performers who accompany the sense of the film, Dave Bautista and the immense, never intrusive Jamie Lee Curtis. “The Last Showgirl,” a cinematographic work of surprising emotional depth, is revealed, enhanced by convincing interpretations and a narration that manages to balance moments of intense melancholy with flashes of hope and rebirth.
Cast: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka
Director: Gia Coppola
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars)
The Last Showgirl Review: Pamela Anderson Has Never Shone So Much (and not just for spangles) | Filmyhype
Director: Gia Coppola
Date Created: 2025-04-03 14:04
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Pros
- Pamela Anderson is perfect at embodying the showdown with dreams.
- Gia Coppola is frank and poetic in representing both the protagonist and Las Vegas.
- He speaks effectively of art, hopes, failures, parenting, dreams.
Cons
- It does not have the same impact, by direction and protagonist, of renaissance films such as The Wrestler.
- It is more melancholy than hard, it does not take clear positions.
