Billie Lourd, Brenda Song, Dave Bautista, drama, film festivals, Gia Coppola, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jason Schwartzman, Kiernan Shipka, Las Vegas, movies, Pamela Anderson, reviews, The Last Showgirl, TIFF, Toronto International Film Festival
December 14, 2024
by Carla Hay
Directed by Gia Coppola
Culture Representation: Taking place in Las Vegas, the dramatic film “The Last Showgirl” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A 57-year-old showgirl dancer has to come to terms with losing her longtime job in a profession that values youth, as she tries to repair her relationship with her estranged adult daughter.
Culture Audience: “The Last Showgirl” will appeal primarily to people who are fans f the movie’s headliners and dramas about people going through a mid-life crisis.
“The Last Showgirl” is a nearly perfect showcase for Pamela Anderson as a showgirl dancer grappling with ageism, sexism and parenting regrets, as her long-running job is about to end. This drama realistically depicts an entertainer’s mid-life crisis. “The Last Showgirl” is not without flaws, but Anderson proves to be ideal for the starring role. The movie is also a harsh reality check of how the definition of “sexy” is more likely to have an expiration date for women than for men.
Directed by Gia Coppola and written by Kate Gersten, “The Last Showgirl” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie takes place and was filmed on location in Las Vegas. “The Last Showgirl” would make a great double feature with the 1995 camp classic “Showgirls” because “The Last Showgirl” portrays what happens to a showgirl who got her start in the 1990s, and has defied the odds by staying in the same production for almost 30 years.
In the “The Last Showgirl,” Anderson portrays Shelly, a 57-year-old showgirl who used to be the star attraction at Le Razzle Dazzle, a long-running Las Vegas production that features topless female dancers. Shelly, who is friendly but somewhat flaky, loves her showgirl job more than anything else in her life. Le Razzle Dazzle likes to think it’s inspired by French cabaret shows at Moulin Rouge, but it’s really a gawdy and glitzy Las Vegas show. As Shelly got older, her place on stage in Le Razzle Dazzle went from performing in the center to being in the background.
Shelly’s life has revolved around Le Razzle Dazzle, ever since she joined the show in the 1990s. More recently, the number of the show’s performances during the week have been reduced to make way for a tiger act. Le Razzle Dazzle stage manager Eddie (played by Dave Bautista), who has a gruff but caring personality, announces early in the story that Le Razzle Dazzle will soon permanently close because the venue owner wants the tiger act to take over for the entire week. Shelly is naturally devastated because she knows the chances are almost next to nothing that she can get a similar job somewhere else.
“The Last Showgirl” depicts the final days before Le Razzle Dazzle closes. Shelly has become close to two of the dancers who are young enough to be her daughter: Mary-Anne (played by Brenda Song) is outspoken and independent. Jodie (played by Kiernan Shipka) is ambitious but emotionally vulnerable. Mary-Anne and especially Jodie see Shelly and Eddie as surrogate parents.
In a conversation with Jodie, Shelly mentions that she was married for about two years to a man who didn’t like living in Las Vegas. He moved to New York and met someone else, so that was the end of the marriage. Shelly has never remarried, and the movie implies that Shelly hasn’t been unlucky in love for a very long time, probably because she hasn’t found someone who can handle her passion for her job.
The man whom Shelly is closest to at this time in her life is Eddie, who is also a workaholic. Unlike Shelly, Eddie isn’t panicking about Le Razzle Dazzle ending because he’s been asked by the venue owner to stay on as the stage manager for the tiger show. There are hints that Shelly is attracted to Eddie. When she asks him to dinner, she shows up in a sexy beige sequined dress. Eddie’s response: “You look really beautiful—even covered up.”
Shelly has a young adult daughter named Hannah (played by Billie Lourd), who often felt neglected by Shelly when Hannah was a child. Shelly eventually let underage Hannah live with one of Shelly’s married friends, who raised Hannah for the rest of Hannah’s childhood. And where is Hannah’s biological father? That question is answered in the movie.
“The Last Showgirl” has scenes of Shelly, Jodie and Mary-Anne getting ready for performances. But some of the most impactful scenes are between Shelly and Hannah, who arrives for a visit from Tucson, Arizona, where she will soon graduate from college with a major in photography. Shelly and Hannah haven’t seen each other in a year.
The raw feelings and tension between this mother and daughter are examples of the collateral damage that has accumulated because of Shelly’s past choices as a parent. But there are also tender scenes between Shelly and Hannah, such as when Shelly encourages Hannah to pursue a career doing something that Hannah loves, not what other people expect Hannah to do. Hannah admits to Shelly that she’s not a fan of Le Razzle Dazzle.
Jamie Lee Curtis has a small supporting role as Annie, a tough-talking cocktail waitress at the venue. Annie used to be a showgirl for Le Razzle Dazzle from 1987 to 1999. Although Annie doesn’t like to admit it, she misses being on stage. A memorable scene in the movie is when Annie spontaneously gets on stage while in her cocktail waitress uniform and dances to Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
Curtis stands out in the movie because she somewhat over-acts and looks like she wants to steal all the scenes where she appears. Lourd also stands out for different reasons, because her effective performance as Hannah (who has mixed feelings about Shelly) is more about being a scene partner rather than a scene stealer. Bautista, Song and Shipka also capably handle their roles, but their characters in the movie don’t have enough development or insight into who Eddie, Mary-Anne and Jodie are outside of their jobs.
“The Last Showgirl” begins with a scene of Shelly auditioning to be a dancer somewhere, and this scene is revisited with more information later in the movie. It’s revealed that this audition took place after Shelly found out that Le Razzle Dazzle was closing. Shelly auditions to the 1982 Pat Benatar song “Shadows of the Night.” And the feedback she gets from the rude director (played by Jason Schwartzman) becomes a turning point for Shelly.
Anderson brings a lot of emotional authenticity to this role of Shelly, perhaps because she’s lived the experience of becoming famous as a sex symbol dealing with skepticism about her talents as an entertainer. (For “The Last Showgirl,” Anderson received a 2025 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.) Shelly doesn’t think Le Razzle Dazzle is a tacky nudie show. “This is breasts and rhinestones and joy!” Shelly says backstage in exasperation after experiencing a small and disinterested audience.
But a more telling moment in the movie is when Shelly describes not how she wants audiences to feel when watching Le Razzle Dazzle but how she feels when she’s performing in the show: “I love the show. I feel so good about myself in the show … The costumes, the set, being bathed in that light, night after night. Feeling seen, feeling, beautiful. And I can’t imagine my life without it.”
“The Last Showgirl” has some pacing issues. And some of the film tends to be a bit rambling. But the strength of the movie is rooted in Anderson’s compelling portrayal of someone who centered her life around a job that requires sex appeal. And now that her job is ending, and she’s at an age when women are considered “not as sexy” as younger women, she wonders what kind of life she will have. The movie doesn’t pretend to have the answers about what Shelly should or should not do next. However, “The Last Showgirl” can be both a cautionary tale and an inspiration for how to be a showbiz survivor.
Roadside Attractions released “The Last Showgirl” in Los Angeles on December 13, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cities on January 10, 2025.