Anderson Dazzles Like a Jewel in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl

Shelley (Pamela Anderson) has been a Las Vegas showgirl for over 30 years, the feather and crystal–adorned centerpiece of Sin City’s last remaining traditional floor show. The stage and the women she shares it with are her loving, bickering, sequin-clad family. When the stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) announces the show will permanently close in two weeks, Shelley and her co-workers must make decisions for their future. But the future looks a lot different at 50 than 20, especially when your sole job skill is being a beautiful dancer.

If all that weren’t enough, Shelley tries to reconnect with a daughter (Billie Lourd) she hardly knows, which proves just as challenging as losing the only job she has ever had since she was 19 years old. Bolstered by her best friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a brash cocktail waitress who laughs a little too loud and too often, Shelley must find her place in a world that she shut the door on years ago.

Inspired by the long running showgirl hit Jubilee (which ran until 2016), most films set in Las Vegas focus on the high-wattage neon glow of The Strip. But, the latest from  director Gia Coppola turns that tradition around, showing us a story from behind the lights, with a captivating and spectacular performance by Pamela Anderson.

Anderson and Curtis own this film with every fiber, line and scene proving that age means absolutely nothing when it comes to skill and talent.  These women are beautiful, resilient and badass making this film a joy to experience during every single solitary moment while paying homage to the showgirl history of the infamous Vegas showrooms which are now are memories of days gone by. Anderson has conquered Broadway as Chicago’s Roxie Hart and now she is letting Hollywood know once and for all that she is and has always been more brains and brawn than beauty.

One of the most prolific, yet heartbreaking moments is when Shelley finally gets up the nerve to go to an audition only to discover how much the industry has truly shifted.  Being beautiful with minimal talent isn’t enough to get by any longer. The skills have been upgraded leaving the quintessential ideal of showgirls in the narrative of the past with no room to exist in the present or future.

Directed, written and produced by Gia Coppola, this documented descent of an aging showgirl is a wonderful tribute to the ladies that made Vegas what is is today. Coppola’s camera slyly and gently goes everywhere with her characters, capturing the childlike bewilderment on Shelley’s face as she absorbs news, and the heartbreaking compassion emanating from Eddie’s eyes as he delivers it.