In the Last Showgirl Pamela Anderson plays Shelley, an aging Las Vegas showgirl who finds out her show is closing. The film deals with how she deals with this news as she tries to figure out what to do with her life next.
Shelley sees being a Vegas showgirl as an art while everyone else sees it as a job or as selling sex – even other showgirls. As modern Vegas is getting both more family friendly and more explicit it seems like Shelley is a woman out of time. Shelley refers to her work as “dancing nudes” and constantly brings up that the Vegas showgirls are descended from the dancers of Paris. While her old-fashioned show is closing the new shows all seem to be either completely upfront and explicit about sex or all about acrobatic maneuvers. Shelley doesn’t fit in in either of those boxes.
The ensemble cast is great and they all work well together. Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song play younger showgirls who see Shelley as an almost motherly figure. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Annette, Shelley’s alcoholic and gambling addict best friend who’s barely hanging on as a cocktail waitress. The main four women really embody a group of women who are close-knit from being together almost every day even while their personalities clash.
Is this the first time anyone has asked Pamela Anderson to act? Her performance shows much greater depths than we’ve ever seen from her.
I think this was my favorite film of the festival, director Gia Coppola has presented a really emphatic tale of tragic showgirl.