Pamela Anderson stars in Gia Coppola’s melancholic Vegas drama

Entertainers – real entertainers, those who command the stage with a strong will – have long been a dying breed, especially in Las Vegas. As the city has become a debauched Disneyland, there is less emphasis on show business and more on merchandise, fame and excess. Pamela Anderson’s Shelley is facing the slow death head on The Last Showgirl When her long-running Vegas show Le Razzle Dazzle is set to close she is sent into an existential crisis.

Le Razzle Dazzle is the last of its era, the kind of show where the women wear elaborate sequined costumes bejeweled to the heavens. Shelley is the show’s longest-serving cast member, a mentor of sorts to his younger dancers, including two played by Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Annette, a former Le Razzle Dazzle showgirl turned casino cocktail waitress, a reminder of what Shelly is on the brink of as the show closes.

Pamela Anderson gives the performance of her career in the latest Showgirl

Le Razzle Dazzle is Shelley’s life, so much so that her estranged daughter Hannah went to live with a family friend when she was younger, her mother unable to deal with raising a daughter and starring in a hot Vegas show. It slowly becomes clear, though, that the Le Razzle Dazzle Shelley believes in is something that only exists in her head. Like her whole life, it is now a thing of the past.

Shelly’s wood-paneled house is distinctly eighties. She still uses a portable cassette player and watches old showgirl performances on a projector in her magnificent living room, dancing along with them. Shelly hates Vegas, but when she’s faced with what Vegas is now, she’s back to accepting it.

What Vegas is now is explored through the characters of Shipka and Song. When the former auditions for a new show that advertises itself as a hedonist’s paradise, she shows Shelly the audition routine. Anderson’s character is appalled by the overtly sexual nature of it, decrying it as beneath her and her fellow performers. But when her daughter sees Le Razzle Dazzle for the first time, she confronts Shelley about the show being just as provocative as anything else in Vegas.

Still, Shelley insists that Le Razzle Dazzle is Otherwise. It’s classy. It’s not like the girls who paint on chairs and slap the donkey. Dancing Shelley knows is an art, which she has perfected over decades. She cannot face the truth that Vegas has not only morphed into something new, but that she actively played a role in its evolution, for better and worse.

When the truth comes to her, it’s heartbreaking to see Anderson’s character come to terms with the life she’s chosen for herself, even as she remains steadfast in her love for the Force. As Shelly reviews her life, we see her attempt to reconnect with her daughter and figure out her role in Le Razzle Dazzle Indeed means to you after all these years.

The meaning may be partly in Hannah, played delicately by Lourd, who is learning to be a photographer. When she tells Shelly, whom she calls by her first name, that her adoptive mother insists she be a graphic designer instead, Shelly pushes back on that. It’s easier to follow your dreams, she says, than to do something you hate every day. Shelly doesn’t want to do something she hates every day – she wants to dance.

throughout The Last ShowgirlDirector Gia Coppola shows Shelly in empty parts of Vegas, smoking cigarettes or spinning around to music we can’t hear. The daylight is muted, the neon has lost its shine. When she’s not shooting the Vegas skyline from afar, Coppola homies in her actors’ faces as they watch the world around them morph into shapes they don’t recognize.

Each actor brings something special to the film. Dave Bautista is subtly affecting as Shelly’s ex (also Hannah’s father), while Curtis is fearless and hysterical as Annette. It’s the relationship between Shelly and Shipka and Song’s character that hits the hardest, though. Despite serving as a mother figure to them, it is a transient role, one that shifts between them.

At one point, Shelley was unable to be there for Shipka’s character. In another, Song’s must intervene when Shelly is at her lowest. Shelly pushes away those who love her. Contrasted with her relationship with Hannah, which she so desperately wants to work on, it’s clear that Shelly is still learning how to take care of herself before anyone else.

The Last Showgirl isn’t perfect – it’s melodramatic by design, and it wears its heart on its sleeve. But Anderson’s raw and unfiltered performance, which is clearly made for her, makes up for the film’s weaker elements, as does the chemistry between the cast. It’s a crowning moment for Anderson, deservedly so, and an ode to the often overlooked showbiz workers who keep Sin City running.

The Last Showgirl Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is 85 minutes long and not yet rated.