The Last Showgirl review: Pamela Anderson's breakout role is a belter

You might have been surprised to see Pamela Anderson in a starring role for The Last Showgirl, the Gia Coppola movie which debuted last year at Toronto Film Festival. Anderson hasn’t appeared in a part that’s not a cameo for nearly 20 years, since Barb Wire. And sadly we all know how that went down with critics of the professional and armchair kind. Though, don’t call it a comeback: Anderson herself has explained she views her role as her breakout. “I’m just getting started,” she said at the first London screening of the film this week — and she already has two other big screen parts in the pipeline.

So if we are to view this movie for what it is: an indie, shot in 18 days for the film festival circuit, with an emerging actress at its helm — it is a belter. Anderson proves she can run the gamut as Shelly, a showgirl on the Las Vegas strip. She is sometimes fragile, yet dignified; sensuous on stage, yet flighty behind the scenes. And the use of 16mm film makes for a softly lensed but sparkling portrait of a hard-up real-life community — the production feels sensitively handled, finding beauty in a scene that could have been looked at through a voyeuristic lens. While a soundtrack with star power from Miley Cyrus and Lykke Li ensures you feel all the feels, even with quite a sparse script by Kate Gersten.

As a relative newcomer to the big screen at 57, it feels poignant that Anderson plays a character the same age who is facing up to the end of a 30-year long career. Shelly is the longest-serving member of the longest-running dance spectacle, named the Razzle Dazzle, on the strip. And it is about to be no more, as the venue is shutting it down. Its basic routines and glitzy, barely-there costumes are seen as low-rent — yet a “nudey circus” that is more titillating is set to steal the show’s slot.

We meet Shelley in the opening scene with caked make-up, melting under stage lights. It’s a shocking vision from someone who has sworn off painting her face in real life and become something of an icon for it. Shelly is fumbling an audition for a new show, and the awkward exchange serves to underline the ageism of the entertainment world. Though this is just one thread of the narrative to come.

Then as we flash back to just before Shelly finds out the show is to end, we meet her chosen family: Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song are like her surrogate daughters in the dance production; while Jamie Lee Curtis is the spunky, one-liner-spilling ex member of the troupe, who now works as a cocktail waitress. And then there’s her real daughter, played by Billie Lourd, from whom she is semi-estranged; and an ex, played by Dave Bautista, who is also staff for the Razzle Dazzle show, with whom she has a complex, fractured relationship.

The story is leading up to Shelley’s swan song, and en route she is trying to come to terms with losing her livelihood, her identity and the daily support of her dance sisters. Contrary to the managers’ and other dancers' view of the show as crass and outdated, Shelly says her role in it makes her “feel so seen,” she loves being “bathed in the light, night after night.”

It’s easy to draw parallels between Anderson and Shelly: both have been made a spectacle of, are objectified for their beauty, torn down for it too and are single mothers. Though in her vocalisation, Shelley recalls a much younger Anderson, with bashful Marilyn Monroe mannerisms. It’s hard to ascertain if this woman is supposed to be knowingly coquettish or vulnerable, but soon it’s clear she is both, a very multi-layered character. Many women will relate to her identity struggles, and the concept of ageing out of a career — or just know a woman who is exactly like Shelly.

Anderson wrote her own speech for a scene in the movie about motherhood which really strikes a chord. And once you know where you are with Shelly (or rather than you’re not meant to know what you’re getting), it’s a captivating performance. Gia Coppola hounded Anderson to take on this role (not taking ‘no’ as an answer after approaching her agent, and then chasing after her son Brandon Thomas Lee to secure her instead), and she was definitely right to think it was made for her.

The movie is succinct at just 89 minutes, but it’s got plenty of heart. Anderson’s next chapter is off to a very promising start. And Curtis in the supporting role is a stroke of genius. It really is a delight to see great women who happen to be in their 50s and 60s being given more of the spotlight this year.