Review: The Last Showgirl (2024)

Pamela Anderson makes a triumphant return to the screen with The Last Showgirl, her first film in nearly a decade, and one that often rests squarely on her shoulders. It’s a role that demands quite a bit from her, and she more than rises to the challenge, delivering a performance that has earned well-deserved awards buzz and caught a jaded industry by surprise. 

The film takes place in Las Vegas over a period of two weeks as a long-running showgirl revue is slated to close, making way for something new and fresh. It’s the last show of its kind on the strip, now outdated and irrelevant. At the center of our story is Shelly (Anderson), a dancer who has been with the review for decades. She’s become a surrogate mother to the younger girls (Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka), but she has an estranged daughter of her own (Billie Lourd) that she’s trying to patch things up with. Shelly’s closest friend and mentor is Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a former showgirl who aged out of the revue six years ago and now makes ends meet as a cocktail waitress. Eddie (Dave Bautista) is the quiet, socially-awkward guy who’s been making sure the show goes on night after night. In a strange way, these characters are a dysfunctional family, but they're about to be forced to go their separate ways. 

Anderson is a revelation. Obviously one of the most recognizable sex symbols of the 1990s and the subject of tabloid scandal, she’s been out of the spotlight for a long time. She’s older now, and the industry that once celebrated her physical beauty has long since moved on. All of that factors into her performance in The Last Showgirl. In the film, she was once the star of the show. She was on the cover of the brochure, and she was front and center in the revue. As the years passed, she moved further and further to the back, behind the younger girls, no longer the star but still a believer in the magic of the production. The more time we spend with her, the more we start to understand why she does what she does and why she hasn’t been able to move on. The drama also intensifies as the film unfolds, culminating in an emotional performance the likes of which we’ve never seen from the actress before. Anderson spends much of the movie without makeup—something real in this city of illusion. 

There’s a sadness that hangs over The Last Showgirl, a pervasive sense of regret—but there’s hope and beauty, too. The film manages to capture the unglamorous, cruel side of Vegas, as well as the fickle nature of a business built around superficiality. Our characters, once young and beautiful, came to Vegas long ago to dance, but they ended up as part of the mirage. They still hold their dreams in their hearts, though: Jamie Lee Curtis, who is fantastic in the film, does a tabletop dance that’s so heartfelt and emotional that it actually gave me goosebumps. It’s gut-wrenching. 

Gia Coppola’s film often feels like a documentary, as if we’re watching real people as they struggle, celebrate, and dream about leaving Las Vegas, though we know they probably never will. The movie was shot on 16mm film, lending the story a gritty, vèritè quality. The camera is often tight on faces, pushing everything that is not in the center of the frame out of focus and smearing the edges in a hazy, almost dream-like blur. It suits the film. 

I found myself constantly reminded of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. The two films share so many similarities that they actually feel like two sides of the same coin. Both feature performers who are past their prime, struggling to maintain connection with their children, and grinding along in a job that they should have quit years ago. Like The Wrestler, Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl doesn’t judge its characters and it doesn’t tell us how to feel about them. It simply presents them as complex, three-dimensional people who have made mistakes, but who are also doing their best. There’s even a shared sense of ambiguity between the two films, as we leave the narrative without any real closure as to where the characters are going and what is going to happen to them. But that’s the way life goes; we never know what’s going to happen next. We don’t always get a happy ending. We only have right now. 



As a cap on the whole experience, Miley Cyrus contributes a new song that closes the film, and it’s a stunner. “Beautiful That Way” perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the story, a mix of triumph and sadness. The Last Showgirl is a powerful piece of cinema with characters that stick around after the credits have rolled.  Something tells me I’m going to be thinking about them for a long time.