‘The Last Showgirl’ Review: The Show’s Over, Pam, Go Home
No, it’s not an overdue sequel to Showgirls (although, in a funny twist, there is one). The Last Showgirl is Pamela Anderson’s attempt at doing what Demi Moore did with The Substance – make a comeback, show people she’s more than a pretty face or past her prime, and prove she’s willing to be vulnerable.
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Having seen it finally, I can report she and the film come close but only scratch the surface of the themes they explore. Shelly Gardner (Anderson) is a Las Vegas Showgirl who’s 30 years into a run in a burlesque show on The Strip that is about to shut down. Times are changing and so are tastes.
She also happens to be a single mother estranged from her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who is graduating college and in town to reconcile. Her timing isn’t the greatest, but even without her spawn turning up, Shelly has tempestuous relationships to wend with her younger co-stars Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), and her producer/former lover Eddie (Dave Bautista). You can probably guess why he’s so important beyond putting the show together.
That might sound interesting, and like it has familiar elements you can count on, but Last Showgirl only goes so far with its material. Moreover, it undermines itself by wasting considerable time on solo dance numbers and quiet walks around Vegas. For a 90-minute movie, there is noticeable padding in the runtime and copious scenery chewing.
Stylistically, it’s indie – and I mean very indie. Director Gia Coppola and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot their movie handheld on 16mm with anamorphic lenses like some of the most trendsetting indie films of the 80s and 90s. Not so coincidentally, that window of time was the prime of Pam Anderson and her co-star Jamie Lee Curtis, who has a supporting role as an aging cocktail waitress who is more bitter than Shelly.
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The latter has her moments, but they don’t always feel earned. Anderson’s mood swings from chipper to maniac to depressive and back depending on the scene. She’s perfectly willing to play surrogate mother to Mary-Anne and Jodie until the script calls for some conflict. Thus, Shelly turns self-righteous and bitchy toward them on separate occasions when one shows up at her house in a desperate situation and the other walks her to her car.
Hannah doesn’t fall far from the tree. Once she shows up, she rapidly goes from ‘I love you, Mom. Let’s catch up over dinner,’ to ‘I hate you and your career and that Game Boy you gave me!’ (Really, Billie Lourd brings up playing a Game Boy.) Nonetheless, she sticks around so the happy(-ish) ending can happen.
The film says a lot about change and how you can respond to time passing by, but it doesn’t answer the questions it raises or reach the kind of satisfying (albeit bleak) resolution you get from The Wrestler or Sunset Boulevard. Anderson’s character gives the finger to time and the men telling her to grow up and consequently seems to fail at learning anything.
Her performance is good enough for an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination, and that’s surely what Last Showgirl was made for, but it wasn’t nominated for the former. It’s also disappearing from theaters faster than a Vegas residency, but don’t worry too much if you didn’t catch it. You wouldn’t think about it after a while anyway.
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The Last Showgirl
PROS
- Pamela Anderson turns in a good performance
- JLC, Brenda Song, and Kiernan Shipka steal their scenes
- Short runtime
CONS
- The script and story are undercooked
- Bad and blurry cinematograpy
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