.

A friend asked me what I was doing for the weekend and when I said I might be going to see The Last Showgirl, he asked what that was. I told him it was a film starring Pamela Anderson as an experienced Las Vegas showgirl to which he responded ‘oh right!’ in a way as to suggest that he knew exactly what that kind of movie that made it. Cue me immediately spluttering for a while as I tried to explain what kind of movie it actually is. 

The Last Showgirl, in which Pamala Anderson is indeed a dancer in the Neon City, is not the movie it would have been with that casting a decade and a half ago. Anderson’s popularly accepted persona has been recemented recently with the release of the Pam & Tommy TV show and her cameos in Borat 2 and Dwayne Johnson’s risible Baywatch remake, but in the last few years she has, by choice or necessity, moved away from the types of busty siren roles she took when she was younger. This film picks up on this by featuring her as a woman ageing out of the job she loves and having to face up to a period in her life that she is not prepared for, practically or emotionally. What it is, is a film about the way women are perceived as they get older and the attitudes that exist around ‘exotic’ performers. Anderson has been rightly heralded for this role and the film could have figured more in awards season if the part of the middle age actress having a career renaissance by riffing on her own previous reputation in a story about lost youth, only for the adventure to end with a surprise loss of the Oscar to a previously unknown twenty something, had not been taken by Demi Moore. The Last Showgirl was recognised by SAG and BAFTA but for whatever reason didn’t get a single Oscar nod. 

In truth, this film is not as good as Moore’s movie The Substance or indeed the ultimately garlanded Anora. It shares elements with both of them, featuring a previous female star realising that a career built on her looks cannot last forever and centring on, in this case the lighter end of, the sex industry. The cast, which includes Dave Bautista, Kiernan Shipka, Billie Lourd, Brenda Song and a particularly brilliant Jamie Lee Curtis, are all wonderful but the story is quite pedestrian and holds no surprises whatsoever. Also, while The Substance and Anora both meticulously built to very different but equally strong endings, this finds no real resolution. The film plays with unreliable narration at its close but not with any conviction and any denouement you walk away imagining to fill this gap is not a happy one either. This may not be fair but I was left with the impression that writer Kate Gersten and director Gia Coppola didn’t have the courage or the imagination to go there themselves.

It’s a shame because generally this is an engaging and moving movie. It is a relatively quiet film, especially compared to both The Substance and Anora, and it handles the narrative with maturity and sensitivity. There does seem to be a lack of innovation or strong ambition here though and unlike Pamela Anderson at the peak of her popularity, one way or another it’s not going to leave a great mark on popular culture.