Billie Lourd Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Last Showgirl,’ starring Pamela Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista and Jamie Lee Curtis

December 14, 2024

by Carla Hay

Pamela Anderson in “The Last Showgirl” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions)

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.

Billie Lourd in “The Last Showgirl” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions)

“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.

Review: ‘And Mrs.,’ starring Aisling Bea, Billie Lourd, Susan Wokoma, Harriet Walter, Sinéad Cusack, Peter Egan and Colin Hanks

October 29, 2024

by Carla Hay

“And Mrs.”

Directed by Daniel Reisinger

Culture Representation: Taking place in England and in Oregon, the comedy film “And Mrs.” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After her American fiancé suddenly dies of a stroke, an Irish woman, who was skeptical about marriage, changes her mind, and goes to great lengths to get legally married to her dead fiancé.

Culture Audience: “And Mrs.” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and far-fetched romantic comedies.

Billie Lourd and Arthur Darvill in “And Mrs.” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“And Mrs.” overloads on schmaltz in an outdated concept that a woman can’t feel fulfilled unless she’s married. Everything looks fake in this messy romantic comedy about a woman who wants to marry her dead fiancé. This is a movie that tries too hard to be funny but ends up being mostly irritating and not very funny at all.

Directed by Daniel Reisinger and written by Melissa Bubnic, “And Mrs.” is the feature-film directorial debut of Reisinger. The movie takes place in England and briefly in the U.S. state of Oregon. “And Mrs.” is built on the flimsy premise that an obscure law in the United Kingdom allows someone to marry a dead person if a valid marriage license already exists for the two people, among a few other requirements.

The protagonist of “And Mrs.” is Gemma Fitzgerald (played by Aisling Bea), a sassy Irish redhead. In the beginning of the movie, Gemma is engaged to an American named Nathan Petruchevsky (played by Colin Hanks), who has a mild-mannered personality. Gemma and Nathan live together in an apartment in London.

They have an “opposites attract” relationship: Gemma is a cynic who’s suspicious of marriage, while Nathan is a romantic who fully believes in marriage. A flashback shows how Nathan proposed marriage to Gemma when they were in a pub playing a movie trivia game, and he played his phone ringtone of the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You” before he proposed. This song is featured again later in one of the movie’s corniest scenes.

Don’t expect to hear anything about what Gemma and Nathan do for a living. Those are details that get in the way of the movie’s tired and sexist premise that it’s hilarious to see a woman who’s desperate to get married. It’s a rom-com stereotype that is stretched to annoying levels in “And Mrs.,” which has another over-used rom-com cliché: a female protagonist who thinks she’s an independent and modern woman, but deep down she’s old-fashioned in believing that her self-worth is dependent whether or not she’s married.

How sassy is Gemma? In an early scene in the movie, this is a conversation that Gemma has with a neighbor named Mrs. Chen (played by Pik-Sen Lim), who tells Gemma that she’s going to buy a gift that’s listed in Gemma’s wedding registry. Mrs. Chen comments, “Everything on your list is a little pricey, I must say. But then, I listen to you having sex, so why should I be embarrassed?”

Gemma replies to Mrs. Chen: “Well, maybe next time, you can come over, and it can be an immersive experience.” That’s actually one of the saltier lines of dialogue in the movie, which rapidly becomes sappier as the story goes along. Most of the dialogue and actions are forced, like half-baked sitcom conversations and scenarios, and not how real people talk or behave.

Gemma isn’t cynical about marriage because her parents are divorced or had an abusive relationship. Her parents Lorraine (played by Sinéad Cusack) and Derek (played by Peter Egan) have actually been happily married for several years. Gemma is cynical about marriage because she thinks marriage is stifling and can make people boring. She says to friends, “The highlight of my mum and dad’s marriage is my mum picking my dad’s blackheads.”

Shortly before the wedding is supposed to happen, Nathan suddenly and tragically dies of a stroke (brought on by a blood clot in his heart) while he’s alone his bedroom and changing his socks. Gemma is devastated, of course. And her skepticism about getting married to Nathan (or getting married to anyone) soon turns into an obsession to carry on with the wedding.

Gemma becomes fixated on the idea of becoming Nathan’s wife after she finds out about a little-known U.K. law that allows someone to get married to a deceased person if there’s a valid marriage license and if it can be proven that the deceased person had intended to get married shortly before dying. The deceased person’s next of kin also has to give consent to this posthumous marriage. No one has been granted such a marriage in the United Kingdom since 1816. Gemma thinks that she can be the exception.

Nathan’s eccentric lesbian sister Audrey (played by Billie Lourd), who has an outspoken personality, shows up in London for what she thinks will be Nathan’s wedding but is actually his funeral. Audrey is so flaky, she doesn’t even know Nathan is dead until Gemma and her parents see Audrey at the airport and tell her because Audrey didn’t listen to her voice mail messages. Obviously, this movie thinks these characters are too stupid to send text messages or email.

Audrey is pregnant as a surrogate for an unnamed gay couple in the United States. She ends up getting involved in Gemma’s quest to still go ahead with marrying Nathan, even though Nathan is dead. Gemma also hallucinates and sees the ghost of Nathan, who talks to her. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Meanwhile, Gemma’s parents (who dislike Audrey) think that Gemma is mentally unwell to go through with this wedding to a deceased person. Gemma’s determination to marry someone who’s dead makes the news and causes even more controversy. It leads to one of the worst parts of the movie, where certain characters become political activists for the right to marry a dead person.

Other characters who are part of this disjointed movie include Gemma’s two best friends: flight attendant Ruth (played by Susan Wokoma) and gay Mo (played by Omari Douglas), who have mixed feelings about Gemma’s determination to marry a dead person. Mo has been chosen to be the wedding officiator. Gemma’s pals think it’s morbid and strange that Gemma wants to get married to Nathan after Nathan has died. However, these friends don’t want to completely alienate Gemma about this issue because they think she’s not in her right mind due to extreme grief over Nathan’s death.

Nathan’s awkward American best friend Dylan Campbell (played by Arthur Darville) arrives in England for the funeral, and he shows an immediate attraction to Ruth. There are some silly shenanigans involving getting legal approval of the marriage, which needs to be signed off on by a lord chief justice named Amanda Vaughn (played by Harriet Walter), a prickly judge who has a condescending attitude toward her gay assistant Alan (played by Samuel Barnett). There’s also a poorly written subplot about Nathan’s estranged mother Margaret Cahill (played by Elizabeth McGovern), a widow who lives in Oregon.

“And Mrs.” isn’t the worst romantic comedy you can ever see. However, the people in the movie come across as caricatures instead of believable characters. The performances are adequate and probably would have been better if the cast members had a great script to work with in the first place. It’s the type of movie that wastes a lot of good talent on a very shallow and predictable story.

Vertical released “And Mrs.” in select U.S. cinemas on September 20, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on September 27, 2024. “And Mrs.” was released in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2024.

Review: ‘Ticket to Paradise’ (2022), starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts

October 19, 2022

by Carla Hay

Julia Roberts and George Clooney in “Ticket to Paradise” (Photo by Vince Valitutti/Universal Pictures)

“Ticket to Paradise” (2022)

Directed by Ol Parker

Culture Representation: Taking place in primarily in Bali and briefly in the United States, the comedy film “Ticket to Paradise” features a cast of white and Asian characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A bickering, divorced American couple will go to great lengths to sabotage the wedding of their young adult daughter, who has decided to abandon plans for a law career in the U.S., so that she can marry a seaweed farmer in Bali, after a whirlwind courtship.

Culture Audience: “Ticket to Paradise” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts, because their chemistry on screen and skillful comedic performances are the best things about the movie.

Pictured seated in the middle: Kaitlyn Dever and Maxime Bouttier in “Ticket to Paradise” (Photo by Vince Valitutti/Universal Pictures)

“Ticket to Paradise” is every bit the predictable romantic comedy that it appears to be, but the on-screen chemistry and talent of stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts bring a lot of charm and appeal. The movie’s snappy banter enlivens the story. Having a skilled ensemble goes a long way in making “Ticket to Paradise” entertaining for viewers looking for a comedy that’s mostly lightweight but offers some emotional gravitas in addressing issues about family and forgiveness.

Directed by Ol Parker (who co-wrote the “The Ticket to Paradise” screenplay with Daniel Pipski), “Ticket to Paradise” gets straight to the bickering between ex-spouses David Cotton (played by Clooney) and Georgia Cotton (played by Roberts), who have been divorced for about 20 years. The movie’s opening scene shows David and Georgia explaining their bitter marital breakup, as they board separately on a plane flight to go to their daughter’s graduation from law school at an unnamed university in the United States.

David and Georgia got married 25 years ago, and their marriage lasted only five years. Their only child is a daughter named Lily (played by Kaitlyn Dever), who is now in her mid-20s. Because Lily’s parents divorced when she was too young to ever remember when her parents were happy together, all she has known is that her parents can’t stand to be in the same room together. Therefore, this family reunion is filled with tension, especially when David and Georgia are forced to sit together at events such as this graduation ceremony.

Of course, people who’ve seen enough romantic comedies already know that David and Georgia’s arguments and insults are indications that they have a love/hate relationship with a lot of unresolved issues. Those issues are eventually revealed in the movie in moments when David and Georgia show some emotional vulnerability. But in the meantime, they act like jealous and competing ex-spouses for most of the story.

After graduating from law school, Lily and her best friend Wren Butler (played by Billie Lourd), who was in the same law school graduating class, take a vacation together in Bali. (“Ticket to Paradise” was actually filmed in Australia.) Wren is a party-loving bachelorette who is loyal to Lily and has very wry observations about life. While swimming in the ocean one day, Lily and Wren find out that they swam too far away from the shore and are stranded.

But lo and behold, a handsome young man suddenly appears in a boat and comes to their rescue. He is a seaweed farmer named Gede, pronounced “ga-day” (played by Maxime Bouttier), and he’s about the same age as Lily and Wren. Gede and Lily lock eyes immediately in the way that future couples do in movies where two people are experiencing infatuation at first sight. Lily, Gede and Wren then hang out at a local bar. And the next you know, Lily has spent the night at Gede’s place.

During this fateful vacation, Gede shows Lily what he does for a living. The simplicity of his lifestyle, the beauty of Bali, and Gede being in tune with nature all have a profound impact on Lily. Lily says to Gede, “I am so out of balance.” He gazes at her lovingly and replies, “I’ll help you find it.” Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

“Ticket to Paradise” then fast-forwards to an unspecified time, which appears to be just a few months later. David and Georgia are shocked to find out that Lily is getting married in Bali to a seaweed farmer whom Georgia and David never met. Lily has also announced that she’s given up her plans to become a lawyer and will live permanently in Bali with her future husband. The wedding date has already been set.

David and Georgia might not agree on many things, but they do agree that Lily is making a huge mistake by getting married to someone she’s known for a short time and by giving up a law career. Georgia and David decide to sabotage the wedding. And somehow, David and Georgia think they might be able to convince Lily to stay in the United States and not to give up her law career too.

But on the plane flight to Bali, more discord happens when David and Georgia are dismayed to find out they have seats next to each other. It’s a problem that is temporarily resolved when a chatty and lonely passenger named Beth-Ann (played by Genevieve Lemon) offers to switch her seat so that she can sit between David and Georgia. And what a coincidence: The flight’s pilot captain just happens to be Georgia’s good-looking and very attentive French boyfriend Paul (played by Lucas Bravo), who’s about 20 years younger than she is.

The hijinks that happen in the movie are pure rom-com fluff that rely on a lot of convenient coincidences that force Georgia and David to spend as much time together as possible. Gede’s large family is very welcoming to Lily and her family, but “Ticket to Paradise” doesn’t give much realistic insight into the dynamics between Gede’s family members, who are all presented as happy people who all get along with each other. Gede’s father Wayan (played by Agung Pindha) is a bit of a jolly prankster, while Gede’s mother Suli (played by Ifa Barry) and sister Losi (played by Cintya Dharmayanti) are very pleasantly generic characters.

Even though Gede and Lily’s wedding is the main event in “Ticket to Paradise,” and the movie shows some aspects of Balinese culture, the story really isn’t about Lily, Gede or life in Bali. It’s about the antics of David and Georgia, who both can sometimes be selfish and cruel when it comes to getting what they want. Georgia and David have some zinger insults that they verbally hurl at each other and sometimes at other people, as well as some slapstick moments that will make people chuckle out loud when David and/or Georgia make fools out of themselves.

Even though some of the movie’s plot developments are a bit gimmicky, one of the most naturalistic-looking and best scenes is when David and Georgia get drunk while playing beer pong with Gede, Lily and Wren. Lily is embarrassed by her parents, of course, but it’s a scene where you can tell that the cast members genuinely had a fun time filming it. The mega-watt smiles and laughter of Roberts and Clooney have a joy that’s very infectious when watching this scene. It’s an example of how good choices in casting can make all the difference in getting a scene to shine in all the right ways.

Dever and Lourd also have believable chemistry together as best friends, even though the movie doesn’t give Wren much to do but react to a lot of zaniness that happens with Lily and her parents. Bouttier is perfectly fine as Gede, who has a few good scenes in showing that he’s smarter than David thinks he is. Bravo has a few well-performed comedic moments as Georgia’s devoted lover Paul. Predictably, David is jealous of Paul, but David tries not to let it show. Meanwhile, Georgia is jealous of David because she thinks that “daddy’s girl” Lily loves David more than Lily loves Georgia.

“Ticket to Paradise” has a breezy tone to it that never lets viewers forget that even with some emotional family baggage that’s brought up in the story, this movie is a romantic comedy, through and through. The movie’s ending will either make people roll their eyes in disbelief or smile with delight. And, if nothing else, even if some viewers don’t like the story presented in “Ticket to Paradise,” they can at least appreciate the gorgeous cinematography of the tropical settings showcased in the movie, which lives up to the “paradise” part of the title.

Clooney has played lovable grouches many times before, while Roberts is doing another version of the sassy cynicism that she’s done for many of her movie characters. But that’s what audiences want to see in this movie, and “Ticket to Paradise” delivers in that regard. Whether people like or dislike this type of romantic comedy, it’s hard to deny that Clooney and Roberts tap into some realistic mixed emotions about ex-spouses who mishandle their unresolved feelings, resulting in some cringeworthy moments intended to make people laugh.

Universal Pictures will release “Ticket to Paradise” in U.S. cinemas on October 21, 2022. The movie was released in Australia and several countries in Europe, Asia and South America in September 2022.