The Last Showgirl Review: A Woman Out of Time

Pamela Anderson delivers a strangely beguiling performance as an aging Las Vegas performer in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl.

We get there by following Shelley (Pamela Anderson), a veteran showgirl at Vegas’s last remaining traditional floor show. While her co-stars, some of them a third her age, see the gig as a way to earn a bit of cash, she prides herself on her artistry. Her show may share some of the explicit content of the modern burlesque extravaganza, but in Shelley’s eyes these are cheap and nasty imitations of a tradition with sophisticated origins in post-war French cabaret.

She may be right, but that doesn’t convince the new bosses of her casino, who scrap the show in favour of an erotic circus event that’s all the rage. As a woman in her late-fifties without a pension and no experience in the outside world, the future looks bleak. Her only solace is friend and ex-colleague Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis, of Borderlands), another member of a generation being put out to pasture, and the faint hope of a meaningful reconnection with her distant daughter (Billie Lourd, of Ticket to Paradise).

Anderson’s performance as the troubled showgirl is fascinating, bringing a childlike melodrama to the picture. Her larger than life character can be jarring at first, but as the film progresses and the feeling that Shelley is a woman out of time grows, her theatrical performance reminiscent of Hollywood’s golden age belles makes increasing sense. In spite of her age and all she has experienced in life, Shelley seems more naive than her young co-performers, whose cynicism towards their craft reflects a wider cultural shift that she desperately wishes to resist, or at least ignore. As the idea of female sexuality on stage becomes more animalistic, one suspects her romantic outlook on life may be a defence mechanism more than anything else.

Strong as Anderson is in her big-screen comeback, the best work comes from Curtis, whose Annette is the film’s brash, margarita-slurping comic relief. Of course, she is not without her own battles, which would merit a film dedicated to the character; if only we saw more of her in this one. Dave Bautista puts in one of his most tender performances yet as stage manager Eddie, who laments but is ultimately untouched by the changes at the venue, his skillset and gender offering a longevity that outlasts the women he works with. Representing the younger generation, Lourd and Twisters star Kiernan Shipka, playing the young dancer Jodie, represent two contrasting but equally impactful images of women damaged by this industry.

The hint of bygone eras brought about by Anderson’s ethereal display is bolstered by the film’s aesthetic style, in which there is more than a touch of Coppola’s aunt Sophia’s Priscilla. Shooting seemingly on film with her regular cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, she uses high-key lighting and fade transitions to create a sense of sparkly, misguided romance. Andrew Wyatt’s string-heavy score is similarly evocative, and propels the movie towards its discomforting and somewhat ghostly denouement.

The Last Showgirl is a powerful depiction of aging femininity, led by a strangely beguiling performance from Anderson that few will expect, and a marvelous turn from Curtis who has hit a real purple patch of late. But the final word must go to the director – in an unusually crowded field, she has released the best Coppola film of the past 13 months.

The Last Showgirl was screened at TIFF on September 6, 2024. Read our list of films to watch at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival!