The Last Showgirl (15)  |Close-Up Film Review

In the film world it’s fast becoming the age of older women.  Now that female directors are becoming a norm rather than an exception, whereas once a female star would have trouble getting cast once she reached a certain age, now some films are actually centred on stories about older women. 

Recently most notably there’s been Oscar nominated Demi Moore (62) in  Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, Angelina Jolie (49) as Maria and Renée Zellweger (54) in the latest Bridget Jones movie.  OK,  the last two are both directed by blokes I’ll admit.  But  now here comes Pamela Anderson (57)  as The Last Showgirl, directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of the great Francis FC.

The title is a bit of a misnomer in that Shelly (Pamela Anderson) is not the last of her kind but a showgirl about to do her last show.  She’s one of those leggy beauties in elaborate costumes gracing the stages of the Las Vegas casinos.   She’s been doing it for 30 years; it is her life.  But now the show is about to close and getting another show job in her fifties is unlikely to say the least. From the opening, unflattering shot of Shelley at what is going to be a disastrous audition for another job – we come back to the scene later – we get what her character is about.  From then on it’s an exploration of how Shelley copes or fails to cope with losing the only purpose to her life.

Through her single minded devotion to her somewhat pathetic career she is estranged her from her daughter (Billie Lourd).  Her closest relationships are with the younger dancers in the show, particularly Mary-Anne (Brenda Son)g and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), to whom she’s become a surrogate mother figure.   Though when Jodie turns to Shelley for a bit of motherly comfort, she rather puzzlingly rejects her.

There’s also Eddie stage manager of the show, her former lover and still devoted friend – a touching performance from Dave Bautista – and her real bestie, former showgirl turned casino hostess Annette played by Jamie Lee Curtis, enthusiastically embracing a character whose looks have long gone and who doesn’t give a damn.  Her defiant table dance to the sound of Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart as the casino patrons walk by oblivious of her is one of the highlights of the film. 

Anderson herself, still best remembered for Baywatch and who’s had her own personal share of rejection, rises to the challenges of the role.  She plays many of her scenes without make up, which actually gives her a touching sometimes rather youthful vulnerability.  And she still has a showgirl’s good legs.  As she puts on her make up before going onstage, it is like putting on a defiant mask.  The scenes in the dressing room of the women doing their warm up exercises and getting ready for the show while they gossip amongst themselves and then racing down the corridor in their finery are a fascinating insight into backstage life. 

We finally get to see Shelly on stage in her finery in her very last show, now relegated to the back row and holding back the tears with a fixed smile on her face.  Was it worth Shelley giving up her life for this?  The answer has to be “No”.   Is it a worthy comeback for Pamela Anderson.   Yes.   A touching and thought provoking performance.