Long-time showgirl Shelly has performed at the Razzle Dazzle for 30 years, when the casino announces that the show will close, she is devastated. While her younger co-stars decide to audition for other shows, she is left in limbo. As the world she’s know for so long starts disappear around her, Shelly tries to reconnect with her estranged daughter and decide what she should do next.
The tone of director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is a continued feeling of sadness. Beginning with the crushing news and the fallout from that. What’s interesting is that a story such as this is not focusing on the show that, within the world of the film, was seen as the last show of its kind and maybe once would have been described as iconic. The focus is nearly solely on Shelly as we watch her world fall apart. Having given up literally everything for her career and the show, she has little to show for such loyalty. She seems careful money unlike her best friend and ex-showgirl Annette who gambles away what she earns as a cocktail waitress. Shelly’s life appears empty outside of the show, her daughter doesn’t even feature in her life until she reaches out to see her. Shelly’s behaviour throughout the whole film is that of someone going through grief. The show was her life and she cannot fathom being without it. She lives in the past, still talking about the 80s when showgirls were seen as ambassadors and how the show emulated that of something similar seen in Paris. Shelly longs for the ‘old days’ of elegance, or at least what she views as elegance.
As we watch her breakdown slowly to her new reality, there is no better person to portray Shelly than Pamela Anderson. She is truly putting everything into this role and she nails Shelly’s vulnerability and delusional behaviour perfectly. Anderson emulates the frustration and sadness of Shelly, she makes us feel compassion for her. The supporting case also do an excellent job with the roles given, but Jamie Lee Curtis steals every scene she is in as Annette.
Writer Kate Gersten based the script off her own play, Body of Work which was in turn based on her visits to the now closed ‘iconic’ show Jubilee! which was one of the longest running show on the Las Vegas Strip. Though this film belongs to Shelly (and Anderson), it also serves as a bittersweet tribute to the old shows and the days of the typical Las Vegas showgirl while ushering in the new entertainers taking their place.
Fantastic performances from Anderson and Curtis are the key to The Last Showgirl but Gia Coppola does bring that feeling of loss throughout as well as a tiny glimmer of hope for the future.