SCREEN SHOT - The Last Showgirl (2024)

Shelly (Pamela Andeson) has been a performer at the Razzle Dazzle review on the Las Vegas strip for most of her life. Working her way up to being the central dancer, in what twenty odd years later has become a distinctly old fashioned, and seedy semi nude review. She always talks it up, about how it is in the tradition of the Paris Revue, as if this was high art she was involved in. This show she believes creates beautiful tableaux not crude sensationalism. Then one evening at a dinner party with the other showgirls, Eddie ( Dave Bautista ) turns up to tell them the revue is being cancelled and will close in a fortnight. For Shelly this news is devastating, she's never known any other life. Surrendering her daughter Hannah (  Billie Lourdes ) to fostering, so she could continue her important work on the strip, The film covers the period up to the final show, and how she slowly goes to pieces, and has to face some painful truths about the shallowness of her life and the supposed 'art ' she is creating. In this she is aided by Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) whose life has already transitioned from retired old showgirl to spunky casino waitress, who is approaching old age with nothing in the bank financially or emotionally.

The Last Showgirl is a beautifully written and composed film, that is extraordinarily sad and touching. Pamela Anderson is the vivid heart of it, in a career defining performance. Shelly is shown warts n all, how she has lived an essentially deluded and selfish life. Exhibiting both the good and the bad in her character, and yet still you feel for her. Like many Americans, she's unable to retire, because with little or no pension, she needs to keep working till she dies. There are many gut reaching moments, that ring painfully true. Eddie, is the shows floor manager who has been there since Shelly began, and is, unbeknownst to Hannah, her father. Bautista plays him sympathetically as a good hearted soul, who unfortunately has this habit of unwittingly putting his foot clumsily through his own best intentions, so the showgirls don't ever respect him. Jamie Lee Curtis, appears to no longer mind how she looks in movies, and plays Annette as this profoundly embittered woman who has lost respect for most people, but feels for Shelly's predicament because it's been her own.

The Director Gia Coppola ( Franei Coppola's  grand daughter ) had to pro-actively seek out Anderson for the central role. Which relies crucially on subverting our own expectations of Anderson, and her career and reputation, to end up completely transforming both. The acting trio of Anderson, Bautista and Curtis are what make this film believable and sing.  All of them play deeply flawed characters, with a depth and nuance that is rare to see in contemporary American movies.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8