Pamela Anderson dazzles in Vegas drama ‘The Last Showgirl’
“The Last Showgirl” — 3 stars
Onetime “Baywatch” babe, reality star and ’90s sex symbol Pamela Anderson (also: activist, bestselling author and mother) has spent much of her career shoved into boxes beyond her control. But the Pam-aissance she’s undergone in recent years, and really her entire 35-year career, has led to her buoyant, wrenching work in director Gia Coppola’s third feature, “The Last Showgirl.” The actress steps into her first dramatic star turn in years and proves that the chance to defy expectations is well overdue.
Anderson, Golden Globe-nominated for the film, brings a bone-deep understanding to Shelly, a bubbly 50-something Las Vegas showgirl who’s poured her life into the once spectacular, now tired and struggling topless revue “Le Razzle Dazzle.” As the show’s longest-tenured star, Shelly has sacrificed plenty in service to the kind of classy-erotic midcentury burlesque that Elizabeth Berkley’s “Showgirls” character, Nomi Malone, would have killed to strut in. But “Le Razzle Dazzle” has long since aged out of vogue in favor of circus acts and raunchier fare, and news that it will shutter in two weeks sends Shelly into a quiet tailspin, setting up a psychological study of female tenacity, ambition and sacrifice.
The impending closure doesn’t stop the feathers, rhinestones and false lashes from flying. The show must go on, and the can-can-do spirit that keeps these dancers in motion is infectious. Coppola bottles a lively energy from the start as she embeds the audience backstage to watch Shelly talk shop, the price of groceries and future prospects with wide-eyed newcomer Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and millennial pragmatist Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) while they hustle in and out of glittering Bob Mackie costumes (vintage, fabulous and sourced from the long-running Vegas staple “Jubilee!” that inspired Kate Gersten’s script).
In their off-hours, the showgirls are a portrait of resilience and community amid the harsh disposability of Vegas life. The ensemble cast brings depth and affection to lived-in moments that include Shelly’s chosen-family dinners, sans makeup and clad in athleisure wear; her encounters with Eddie (Dave Bautista), the gentle stage manager with whom she shares a history; and her candid heart-to-hearts with Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis in a fake tan and frosted lipstick), a grizzled ex-showgirl defying ageism just to sling cocktails in a casino.
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 facade starts to slip as she reunites with her estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), whose guardedness suggests a long trail of emotional wreckage, and Anderson and Lourd create a haunting, fragile mother-daughter dynamic in the silences.
Coppola and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw create intimacy with handheld close-ups in 16 mm and cage their actors against the sunbaked desert and neon corridors of a Vegas Strip that feels perpetually and symbolically just out of reach, custom anamorphic lenses blurring the edges of the frame to dreamy effect. Andrew Wyatt’s expressive, nostalgic score of lush strings, piano and harps weaves a mythical soundscape. And while Miley Cyrus’ raspy ballad “Beautiful That Way” accompanies Shelly’s gauzy grand finale at the Razzle Dazzle, it’s two female-driven ’80s power anthems, by Pat Benatar and Bonnie Tyler, that respectively fuel Anderson’s and Curtis’ hardest-hitting scenes.
In the film’s rawest moments, Coppola captures the horror of realizing the clock is ticking too fast, and the seductive allure of pretending otherwise. Although the slightness of the film’s vignette-heavy narrative is frustrating, its ambiguous ending and lack of easy resolutions, at least, feel honest. And its key takeaway is as necessary as it is clear: Heavy is the head that wears the bedazzled headdress.
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Rated R for strong language and nudity. 89 minutes.