The Last Showgirl may begin – as its ever-romantic heroine exclaims – with a shiny celebration of ‘breasts and rhinestones and joy!’ But in Gia Coppola’s (Palo Alto) sensitive telling, the glitter swiftly disperses to reveal an elegiac meditation on memory and age, femininity and beauty.
If you’ve heard anything about Showgirl, it’s likely that Pamela Anderson has hit a professional high as Shelly, the Las Vegas dancer of the title. And while she is indeed wonderful, her raw turn is only the first of many intricate layers here.
Unfortunately, the layers of Shelly’s carefully-constructed life are suddenly shedding with furious haste. She’s been a proud cast member of the topless casino revue Le Razzle Dazzle for nearly 30 years. But her old-fashioned, elaborately-choreographed cabaret is giving way to seedier, more explicit entertainment: a crude show called ‘The Dirty Circus’ is overtaking their theatre imminently, and the Dazzle dancers (including Brenda Song and Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka) will be unemployed in just two weeks.
The news stuns them all, but 57-year-old Shelly is really left reeling. She protects herself emotionally with a mix of nostalgia and naivete, and she’s still striking enough to assume she remains the sparkling starlet who knocked ’em dead in the ’90s. But 21st century realities keep intruding. There are painfully brutal auditions, a resentful adult daughter (Billie Lourd), and a range of sexist double standards so common they’ve become mundane. Worst, and hardest to ignore, is the pity she keeps glimpsing in others’ eyes.
Anderson is a heartbreaker doing career-best work here
It’s both regrettably apt and a little surreal to watch this lovely, intimate film sit so quietly in the shadow of a similar but splashier (albeit still independent) production. While Sean Baker’s eye-catching Anora is getting all the Oscar talk, Coppola and writer Kate Gersten have packed the screen with exquisite details and powerhouse performances. Yes, Anderson is a heartbreaker doing career-best work here. But Dave Bautista is also outstanding as her hesitant former lover, and a barely-recognisable Jamie Lee Curtis is spectacular as her agonisingly overextended best friend.
Meanwhile, Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s superb cinematography tells its own story: blurred at the edges, bleached-out in daylight, as though Shelly’s eyes have permanently adjusted to the theater’s glamorous darkness. Even her apartment feels cavelike, Nevada’s harsh sun barely intruding on rooms that still evoke a dreamy young woman’s idea of Parisian boudoirs.
‘We were ambassadors for style and grace,’ a shocked Shelly admonishes her young colleagues, after learning they’ve started auditioning for raunchy new revues like ‘Hedonist’s Paradise’. It’s not just that a fading showgirl doesn’t have another way to earn a living. It’s that once the razzle dazzle dies, she won’t even have another way to live.
In US theaters Fri Jan 10, and UK and Ireland cinemas Feb 10.