Brutal truth about two big Oscar ‘snubs’, Pamela Anderson and Nicole Kidman

Fans say Pamela Anderson was cruelly “snubbed” of an Oscar for her role in The Last Showgirl. If you see the movie, you’ll know why.

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It all sounded so good on paper.

Fresh from a redemptive Netflix documentary that made many viewers re-evaluate their opinion of her, 90s Baywatch icon Pamela Anderson was finally given a dramatic role she could really sink her teeth into, playing a part that seems tailor-made for her talents.

In The Last Showgirl, Anderson plays Shelly, a seasoned Las Vegas showgirl thrown into crisis at the news the show she’s starred in for decades will soon close.

But there are many problems with the film, now showing in selected previews ahead of a February 20 Australian release.

There’s the nauseatingly shaky camerawork, all tight close-ups as Anderson emotes. There’s the languorous, uneven pacing, making a sub-90-minute film feel well over two hours. And then there’s the hackneyed script, that has Shelly launch into stagey monologues about the “good old days” every time her younger castmates at the Vegas revue are within earshot.

But sadly, Anderson herself is central to the film’s failure.

Pamela Anderson gives it her all in The Last Showgirl – sadly, it’s just not enough.

Anyone who watched that 2023 Netflix doco, her recent at-home reno show Pamela’s Garden of Eden or her many recent interviews would know that Anderson is undeniably a good hang: Charming, self-deprecating and endlessly charismatic.

But here, she feels instantly out of her depth, struggling to convey the extreme emotions required of the character as she arrives at this dramatic crossroads in her life.

Unfortunately, The Last Showgirl lays bare that Anderson just doesn’t have the chops to carry a dramatic film (casting Hollywood pro Jamie Lee Curtis as her bestie only makes that more clear, their contrasting skill levels apparent in every scene).

When this year’s Oscar nominations were announced earlier this month, there was much chatter that Anderson had been “snubbed” from the Best Actress category. Watching The Last Showgirl, it seems more true that she was lucky to have received a Golden Globe nom.

Pam scored a Golden Globe nomination but was shut out at the Oscars. Picture: AFP

The Last Showgirl sounded good on paper, but it’s a long 89 minutes in the cinema.

One performer who could lay more legitimate claim to being snubbed in the same category is Aussie Nicole Kidman for Babygirl, in Australian cinemas this week.

Kidman was another Golden Globe nominee shut out of the competitive Best Actress Oscar category, and it’s a shame because Babygirl is a thrilling, sexy, frequently hilarious erotic drama, built around a magnetic central performance from Kidman.

She plays Romy Mathis, a high-powered CEO, wife and mother whose life unravels when she enters into an illicit affair with Samuel (Harris Dickinson), a new intern at her company.

It’s no ordinary affair, though: Samuel seems to instinctively know that Romy is craving to explore dominance and submission in the bedroom, yearnings she’d never dare admit to her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas).

Kidman gives it her all in Babygirl.

Throughout it all, Kidman is as game and fearless as we’ve come to expect: There’s frequent nudity, steamy sex scenes, and a palpable chemistry with co-star Dickinson, some 29 years her junior, that leaps off the screen from their first meeting.

Kidman’s work rate has gone into warp speed in recent years, and there’s no denying the quality has suffered (Big Little Lies aside, her frequent forays into the world of TV streaming have felt … inessential).

In Babygirl, it’s a thrill to see Kidman back to doing what she excels at: A sexy, funny, exciting film to sit alongside classics like To Die For and Eyes Wide Shut as one of her very best.

With the Best Actress category at this year’s Oscars currently mired in controversy, with not one but two separate racism scandals amid the nominees … is it too late to sub Kidman in?

Originally published as Brutal truth about two big Oscar ‘snubs’, Pamela Anderson and Nicole Kidman