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.
Pamela Anderson shines in "The Last Showgirl". Coppola knew why to cast her in the lead role... She was fantastic here. Same as Jamie Lee Curtis, top notch performances from both. A very interesting and real story about women growing old and feeling ostracized in the world that they know. Brilliant cinematography and score as well. This is a must watch.
Anderson is radiant playing this daffy optimist who rambles in breathy clips about past glories, as if the world around her hasn’t moved on since the days of Siegfried & Roy.
The Last Showgirl is reluctant to abandon the limelight. Amid its hesitation for resolution, though, it proves how much more Anderson has left to give.
Gia Coppola’s film has no more than a sketch of a plot, but soars on the quietly devastating performance of former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson as an aging Vegas showgirl who learns her hopelessly outdated dance revue has been given the hook after 30 years.
The commentary on gender and age feels easy and unspecific and the world of the Vegas showgirl created from too great of a distance to really ring true.
Pamela Anderson takes the title role, a Vegas showgirl who's been in the same production for 30+ years. She's already struggling when it's announced that the show is closing. This causes her to reflect on her career decisions and the affect it had on her daughter. Anderson creates a sweet character with a deep sadness. In supporting roles Dave Bautista turns in a warm, surprisingly low-key turn, while Jamie Lee Curtis dons a red wig and brown leather skin for her wild waitress role. Director Gia Coppola uses a busy camera to try to delve deeper (which doesn't really work) and one of her favorite traits is to have Anderson wandering around or dancing randomly (not really adding much to the story). The script by Kate Gersten is a rather clichéd, ultimately shallow narrative. It serves more as a showcase for the actors than a touching, meaningful drama.
"The Last Showgirl" is really interesting look at Vegas line dancers behind the scenes but the tone of the film doesn’t match the film’s topics. It’s a total mismatch that keeps you from being engrossed in the overall story. It’s not all bad. It does eventually end but the characters are uninteresting and bleak. Pamela Anderson's character trying to reconnect with her daughter along with performing her last shows feels very shoehorned in a way that doesn't center on the plot. There's a reason why she hasn't gotten acting jobs over the course of her career after Baywatch and it's just because she's a bad actor. Anderson performs this like Tommy Wiseau was her acting coach, and Gia Coppola somehow decided that extreme close-ups in center with an out-of-focus periphery of the frame counted as cinematography. I know they had a low budget and shot in 21 days but I've seen a lot of all time greats made in that length and this feels like film with actors that haven't been given much story to work with.
