By Sandra Hall
THE LAST SHOWGIRL ★★★½
(M) 89 minutes
This offbeat showbiz tale has Pamela Anderson, freckles and all, as Shelly, an ageing Las Vegas showgirl forced to lay aside her spangles and feathers because the show that has sustained her for 30 years is coming to the end of its run.
Pamela Anderson is terrific as Las Vegas stalwart Shelly in The Last Showgirl.
Directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford, the film is something of a Coppola family project. Its producer Robert Schwartzman is a Coppola cousin, his brother Jason, has a small but potent role, and the screenwriter, Kate Gersten, is married to the Schwartzmans’ half-brother.
It all began with Gersten’s and Gia Coppola’s shared fascination with Las Vegas’ life behind the lights. Shelly’s show, Le Razzle Dazzle, is based on Jubilee!, an old-style casino revue with an 85-strong chorus line of statuesque dancers in elaborately designed costumes and lofty headdresses as weighty as a royal crown. It was a show not so much about dance as the ability to hold your ground while bearing up under 30 kilos of gaudy armouring. Its audiences had just about abandoned it when Gersten and Coppola started their research. These days, the big hits in Las Vegas are Cirque du Soleil and an “adult circus” Shelly regards as no better than a bump and grind show.
Jamie Lee Curtis in her fright wig in The Last Showgirl.
It’s a great role for Anderson, who has talked proudly about her decision to stop using make-up, a policy that serves her well here. Scrubbed clean of her stage paint and dressed down in blue denim or a hoodie with a sequinned baseball cap for special occasions, Shelly has an air of innocent gentility. To her, Le Razzle Dazzle is in the tradition of the great cabaret shows of Paris’ Lido.
Nineteen-year-old Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), the youngest dancer in the troupe, regards her as a surrogate mother, but their friend, Mary-Anne (Brenda Song), who’s in her late 20s and is already embittered, gets impatient with her for her refusal to confront the realities of the job.
Shelly’s closest friend and confidante is Annette, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who looks bizarre with a deep tan, white lipstick and a fright wig. A former dancer burdened with a gambling habit, she’s descended to the showgirl version of god’s waiting room – cocktail waitressing amid the casino’s slot machines and baccarat tables. Curtis, game as ever, even treats us to a glimpse of the body stocking and the other architectural underpinnings required to insert herself into her skimpy uniform.
All up, the scene-setting is terrific. Las Vegas, too, is shown without its make-up – sunstruck and weathered, with a dull suburban fringe – but after we get the picture, the script doesn’t have anywhere much to go. Shelly tries to reconnect with Hannah (Billie Lourd), the grown-up daughter she neglected because of her unwavering devotion to the show, but the relationship never gathers much emotional heft, and by the end of it, I was inclined to agree with Mary-Anne. Shelly desperately needs to catch up with the real world.
The Last Showgirl is in cinemas from February 20.
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