Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is a stunning showcase for Pamela Anderson.
The Coppola’s are making a case for artistry being a genetic trait. Gia Coppola is the third generation of filmmakers that have successfully made artfully dynamic commercially viable work early in their career. The Last Showgirl is a stunning third feature film of uncommon honesty and truth under the guise of the illusions of the crumbling glamour of old Las Vegas. A spiritual cousin to the kind of losers in entropy character studies like Mike Figgis’s Leaving Las Vegas and Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart.
The film charts Shelly’s (Pamela Anderson) final days in the Vegas Revue she’s performed in for decades. As her younger fellow dancers, Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) find their way, Shelly is rudderless and without the very thing that defines her life. Even Eddie (Dave Bautista) the Revue’s producer finds work. Shelly’s only comfort is her best friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a former dancer now a waitress and the possibility of a new start with her daughter (Billie Lourd) – but is it enough for someone who’s given all for the spotlight?
The Last Showgirl is the kind of character study that has the barest of a framework that represents a story. Coppola’s film is more interested in Shelly and the inflection point she finds herself in at this crossroads. There is a dignity and grace that Shelly projects and the film gives her, and all the characters, that is uncommon in even the best of these stories. It is not to say that the film does not have a dark side, or the film doesn’t show the cost of Shelly’s life. It does, but the film respects Shelly’s decision and the tragedy that something she’s worked so hard for is being ripped away from her.
Believe the hype. Pamela Anderson is stunning as Shelly. The actress devours the role in all of its glorious and not-so-glorious moments. The performance feels uncompromised in a way that Anderson has never been allowed to be. Shelly isn’t perfect or close to it. There is a beauty in the mess she owns and doesn’t own throughout the film. Shelly can be lovely as she can be shellfish – and Anderson never blinks at playing both. Watch the way that she plays off both Song and Shipka – the ebb and flow of both loathing and loving her young compatriots. Or her refusal to give her daughter what she truly needs to heal to make amends for the pain she caused. All of it played in an unflinchingly graceful note that few actors would be brave enough to commit to.
The supporting cast is as wonderful as Anderson is. Jamie Lee Curtis continues to stun with her unfettered egoless performances. Curtis as Annette matches Anderson beat for beat with a fearlessness that is bound to be awarded. One only needs to her standout moment atop a dance pole to a very specific 80s rock tune. Dave Bautista continues to do under the radar great work as the clueless but well-intentioned revue producer Eddie. It’s the trio of young performers Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, and Kiernan Shipka as the daughters in search of a mother figure in Anderson’s Shelly that shines brightest. The trio in the short time they are on screen give wonderfully astute support to Anderson playing off her in the best way supporting performances can.
The Last Showgirl is the kind of revelatory performance that if Anderson does not get awarded for should garner her more considered and worthy work of her talents. Talents that few if any, except Gia Coppola found. One can hope this is the beginning of a wonderfully artistically fulfilling second-half career for Anderson as she’s earned it.