Pamela Anderson is a survivor. She bounded into fame in 1992 in the original Baywatch TV series. She wore a red one-piece and made quite a splash. She curated her assets and played peek-a-boo until her husband, Tommy Lee, Motley Crue member and video raconteur, shared honeymoon pictures and blew it all, so to speak. She parlayed that into a (failed) franchise, Barb Wire, and has since done TV guest shots—many making fun of her image—and stalled retreads of Baywatch.
Now, with the new film The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson seeks to take her place, once again, in the public consciousness.
The Last Showgirl chronicles the closing of a Las Vegas club called Le Razzle Dazzle, an old-style rhinestones-and-feathers revue (described as "dancing nudes, not a nudie show"). Closing the club will put its star dancer, Shelly, played by Ms. Anderson, out of the job she's been doing for over 20 years.
Shelly is a goddess in her own mind. She's living the dream, at least her version of it: her credo is "Night after night. Being seen. Being beautiful," even as she goes home to a tiny domicile alone. She listens to opera, practices her moves, and takes her role as a theatrical performer very seriously. At first, she's ambivalent about the club closing—"I'm old, but I’m not that old"—but that gives way to dismay.
Pamela Anderson still sets a standard for beauty. Those cheekbones, that smile. In The Last Showgirl, she's scrubbed clean of pretension and eyeliner. As an actor, Ms. Anderson runs the range of emotions with precision and grace. Her Shelly is part idol and part doormat, a shoulder to cry on for the other showgirls. She mostly plays nice until she is dissed during an audition; then, her frustration comes out in a generational clash. Yes, Pamela Anderson can act. She's a pro.
Shelly is reminded of mortality by her much younger co-dancers, most notably Mad Man's Sally, Kiernan Shipka (up for anything to shake off her TV past), Brenda Song, and Star Wars film and American Horror Story alumnus Billie Lourd as her estranged daughter Hannah. More age-adjacent actors complete the mix. Jamie Lee Curtis (also up for anything) plays Annette, the Shelly of Christmas past and a boisterous drunk. Ms. Curtis, fearless as always, tops her recent triumph in FX's The Bear by unabashedly showing off her middle-aged body, most notably in a dance scene set to Bonnie Tyler’s rendition of Jim Steinman's Total Eclipse of the Heart. Dave Bautista is another revelation. I am slowly coming around to Mr. Bautista as an actor when he's not typecast because of how he looks. Here, he plays Eddie, the club's sensitive manager, in a roadie wig that gives a mournful shape to his brutal features.
The Last Showgirl is directed by Gia Coppola, Francis Ford's granddaughter, whose credits include Palo Alto (2013), Mainstream (2020), and music videos for Halsey and Carley Rae Jepsen. She shoots this one handheld, vérité style, and pads runtime with shaky filler sequences of Ms. Anderson strolling around Vegas. But it really isn't important to be in Vegas when your story is primarily a character study. The essential action takes place inside the dressing room and Shelly's house. Come to think of it, The Last Showgirl could be turned into a minimalist off-Broadway play if Ms. Anderson was up for memorizing lines.
The Last Showgirl is a qualified success. The story is a showy late-career joint. It isn't perfect. At a critical juncture, Shelly does, after all, catch her extravagant costume in the doorway on the way to the stage.
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The Last Showgirl. Directed by Gia Coppola. 2024. From Roadside Attractions. In theaters Jan. 10.