Pamela Anderson Dazzles, but The Last Showgirl Can’t Put on a Good Show
Over the last few years, there have been many celebrity biographical documentaries on streaming services, all endorsed, produced, or curated by the famous subject, which somewhat undermines the objectivity of the documentary process. But although the meager delights of sober-minded all-access docs like Tina, Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, or The Greatest Love Story Never Told will no doubt fade (if they haven’t already), Netflix’s Pam: A Love Story may prove to possess actual staying power – because it seems to have prompted a proper career revival for its subject, Pamela Anderson.
It’s too soon to tell after one attractive but underbaked indie film, but if Anderson’s committed and vibrant lead performance as a fading, naïve Vegas showgirl and a booked and busy upcoming schedule (including Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun and Karim Aïnouz’s Rosebush Pruning) are anything to go by, then the affecting and comprehensive Pam (which itself felt like a tonic to the ill-advised, sensationalist miniseries Pam & Tommy) will be remembered as a necessary cultural reset on Pamela Anderson before she remounted her acting career. The Last Showgirl, directed by Palo Alto and Mainstream’s Gia Coppola, is not concrete or commendable enough to preemptively ring the Comeback Oscar bell, but does deftly move past discussions of Anderson’s thorny past and promises brand new horizons for the star. Whether or not the film meaningfully exists outside of its notable lead performance is an entirely different matter.
Vegas ain’t what it used to be, and vintage showgirl Shelly (Anderson) is feeling it keenly. She works in one of the last remaining revue shows on the strip that prides itself on being classic and classy, but the future of her boa-and-rhinestone-filled career is jeopardized when the closure of the show is unceremoniously announced by the theater’s manager Eddie (Dave Bautista, sporting an ash-gray mane of hair and wearing a distracting but desirable shirt with a print of a tiger on it). Shelly and her younger colleagues Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) rally with their casino waitress friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) to figure out what a future in Vegas entertainment even looks like – while Shelly takes a self-critical and existential knock when her college-aged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd) hesitantly reenters her life.
Shelly sits at the center of Gia Coppola’s gaze for the entire film, so much so that cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Loki) uses warped lenses that blur the extreme edges of the frame, drawing our eyes to the most central unnatural, searing denim blues and suntan pinks of the color palette. Visual design choices like these are blatant but devoid of substantial intent, and especially as The Last Showgirl rarely unfolds in any other mode than dialogue, so the out-of-focus, color-distorted shots act more like window-dressing than a commentary on the punishing, precarious position these dancers find themselves in.
That dialogue we mentioned also sabotages the film’s dramatic ambitions. Shelly veers between short-sighted romanticism of what Vegas entertainment used to be (good when it was traditional and artistic; bad when it’s provocative and leering) and a restless anxiety that a sinkhole will open up beneath her and swallow her artistic dreams at any minute – emotional states that Anderson carries well, often channeling both in a single scene. But what Shelly and the rest of the ensemble actually say to each other is nearly always a blunt, easy thesis-statement on the uneasy relationship between art and commerce in one of America’s most profitable deserts. But despite its emotional, regret-tinged reflections on why Shelly mourns an art and culture that never existed in the way she needs it too, Coppola and screenwriter Kate Gersten show complete ineptitude when it comes to addressing – or even acknowledging – the clear class crises presented in the film.
Issues of scarcity, commerce, and job-related desperation are implied more than they are invoked, and Shelly’s dreams of being a true artist are never undercut by a more grounded and sharp look at how financial pressure and artistic compromise dominate these performers’ lives long before their theater announces its closure. It doesn’t help that we never get a good look at Shelly’s performance – the show is only seen in unhelpful, montage’d close-ups in the final moments, so we again rely on Shelly’s dialogue to understand her emotional connection to her dancing. Whatever shade you want to throw at Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven knew that nothing explores a dancer character better than seeing them dance. The Last Showgirl makes its dancing largely theoretical.
Coppola’s connection to one of Hollywood’s most enduring and bonafide entertainment legacies is relevant to her shortcomings as a director; the passion for image-making and storytelling may be in her blood, but that doesn’t mean there are necessarily good films in there too. Her modest debut Palo Alto readily invited taboo but only skated over questions of romantic power imbalance, and her LA satire Mainstream (starring Andrew Garfield as a manic YouTube celebrity) was so poorly constructed and comedically out of touch that it looped back around to a fascinating oddity.
At once Coppola’s most coherent and least interesting film to date, The Last Showgirl feels designed for pre-release award body screenings, where its most unique elements – a worthy, game ensemble cast! An arresting lead performance! A careful, loving attention to showgirl decor and costuming! – can be itemized and lauded on a voting ballot, rather than them adding to a complex and effective film. Vegas may no longer be the same, but cloying indie dramas haven’t changed a bit.
Director: Gia Coppola
Writer: Kate Gersten
Stars: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Billie Lourd, Jason Schwartzman
Release date: Dec. 13, 2024
Rory Doherty is a screenwriter, playwright and culture writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can follow his thoughts about all things stories @roryhasopinions.