The Last Showgirl review – Pamela Anderson finds the pathos in Vegas

She will forever be synonymous with Baywatch but Pamela Anderson only joined the daft, sun-dappled 1990s lifeguard drama in its third season. Her character CJ is introduced as a capable outdoors type living in the mountains, first glimpsed skillfully navigating some wild rapids in a canoe. But by the time David Hasselhoff’s beefcake Mitch catches up with her, CJ is posing in a skimpy top honking away tunelessly on a saxophone.  

It’s a scene framed for laughs. Check out the gorgeous blonde bombshell struggling to expand her artistic horizons. Or even more reductively: we love looking at you Pammy, do we really have to listen to you as well? 

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That seemed to set the template for Anderson, even as the former Playboy model helped propel Baywatch to unprecedented global success. Her life and loves became a 1990s tabloid obsession, and no one seemed particularly interested in her side of the story. For those who missed the scandal first time round, the intentionally gaudy 2022 drama Pam & Tommy recently rehashed how her 1995 honeymoon videos with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee were stolen and edited into a notorious sex tape.  

Anderson herself was not involved with that mini-series, preferring to offer a more dignified counterpoint
via a 2023 autobiography Love, Pamela and an accompanying Netflix documentary in which she seemed remarkably upbeat despite her tumultuous life experience. 

But with the greatest respect to 1996’s Barb Wire – a post-apocalyptic riff on Casablanca starring Anderson as a voluptuous bounty hunter – it’s fair to say her Hollywood career never really took flight. So it’s easy to root for The Last Showgirl, the story of a veteran Las Vegas dancer who has been putting a brave face on things for over three decades.  

Director Gia Coppola (granddaughter of Francis Ford, niece of Sofia) has been upfront about the fact that she only ever had Pamela Anderson in mind for the part, and it feels like the ideal fusion of role and actor. If the temptation is to compare it to Paul Verhoeven’s demented Vegas cautionary tale Showgirls, it is really more like The Wrestler, where Mickey Rourke’s rugged but ragged physicality told you everything you needed to know about his over-the-hill grappler.  

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Anderson’s striking Shelly was once the poster girl for Le Razzle Dazzle, a long-running sexy revue with plumed headdresses and jewel-encrusted bustiers harking back to the high-kicking glamour of the Moulin Rouge. But with raunchier productions on offer elsewhere in Sin City, the throwback production is in seemingly terminal decline.  

When gruff but caring stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) confirms the show will close in two weeks, it puts younger dancers Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) back out on the gruelling audition circuit. But for Shelly, it triggers an existential crisis. If there is no more appetite for the artistry of Le Razzle Dazzle, has she simply wasted the last 38 years of her performing life? Was it worth sacrificing her relationship with her estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd)? And what on earth could be next? 

Rather than embrace the theatricality of the stage show, Coppola focuses on Shelly’s backstage and domestic life, often shot on a wide-angle lens that makes the edges of the frame look a little fuzzy. Perhaps this is the only way that the optimistic Shelly can keep going. If everything about her existence was thrown into sharp relief it might be too much to bear. 

If her character has a somewhat rose-tinted worldview, the vulnerability in Anderson’s performance makes you feel instinctively protective towards Shelly. She certainly gets put through the wringer – particularly during a brutal audition scene – but you never want to see her get completely crushed.  

The comfort and companionship of her friends (notably Jamie Lee Curtis, almost unrecognisable as a
former dancer turned formidably tanned casino cocktail waitress) clearly help her keep body and soul together. They also shape The Last Showgirl into more of a textured ensemble piece, which might explain why after an initial flurry of excitement Anderson’s Best Actress awards traction has stalled out. 

Perhaps that’s for the best. Anyone who came to this film with sky-high expectations bolstered by Oscar buzz might end up feeling rather underwhelmed. But as a low-key character study of someone who never stopped believing in their showbiz dream, it is an effective, affecting fable. 

The Last Showgirl is in cinemas now. 

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