The Last Showgirl (2024)
Directed by: Gia Coppola
Premise: An aged Las Vegas showgirl (Pamela Anderson) confronts an uncertain future when her decades old show is cancelled.
What Works: The Last Showgirl is impressively rich and layered. The filmmakers dramatize a range of issues in its slim eighty-eight-minute running time. The Last Showgirl is most obviously about the entertainment industry and the way in which performers age out of certain roles. Shelly, played by Pamela Anderson, has been with the same show for years and now that it’s closing she is at a professional and economic dead end. In that regard the story is also about the tension that sometimes exists between art and exploitation. We see how performers are nickeled and dimed for damaged costumes and younger performers audition for a new show whose choreography is very sexually suggestive. The filmmakers examine the image and legacy of the pin up girl and especially the Las Vegas showgirl. Shelly is wistful for the past when the showgirls were ambassadors for Las Vegas Strip and American culture. It’s implied that this role has been cheapened and vulgarized and so The Last Showgirl represents the end of an era. There is a palpable sense of grief among the characters that at times seems a realization that the glitz and glamour was never real or sustainable. The film is also about womanhood and motherhood. There’s a sense of female community among the characters and especially a sense of maternal relationships between the younger and older women. The performances are tremendous all around, most notably Pamela Anderson in the lead as Shelly. The material allows her to be complicated and flawed and it’s an extraordinary performance. Also notable are Jamie Lee Curtis as a waitress, Dave Bautista as a stage manager, and Kiernan Shipka as a younger performer. Everyone gets moments of depth that reveals their character’s inner life.
What Doesn’t: The Last Showgirl is produced in a realistic low budget style. This mostly works for the film, giving the picture a gritty reality that contrasts with the glitz and glamour of the Las Vegas setting. However, some of the technical choices prove distracting especially the filmmakers’ use of wide-angle lenses and narrow depth of field. These photographic choices create distortions; the edges of the frame are sometimes out of focus. It’s distracting and comes across as a defect rather than a stylistic choice. One of the themes running throughout The Last Showgirl is the matter of exploitation. Shelly defends classic burlesque and insists that it is more artistic and less exploitative than contemporary stage shows. This matter remains vague because we never really see the show. That omission makes some sense given the story’s intimate focus but it weakens this theme and limits our understanding of the characters and their industry.
Bottom Line: The Last Showgirl packs a lot of ideas and themes into an intimate story. Some technical flaws aside, this is a well-made and thoughtful picture with some great performances especially by Pamela Anderson.
Episode: #1032 (January 19, 2025)