The Last Showgirl (2024)

★★★★ Gia Coppola's beautifully understated homage to the Las Vegas working class sees Pamela Anderson deliver a career best performance in a rare, but refreshing, dramatic role

Watch Mar 29, 2025 0 3 Add to Reading List

Dir: Gia Coppola

Cast: Pamela Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis

Gia Coppola’s beautifully understated homage to the Las Vegas working class sees Pamela Anderson deliver a career best performance in a rare, but refreshing, dramatic role

Over the years, Hollywood has shown it loves a good comeback story. This has been evident recently with Oscar wins for the likes of Brendan Fraser, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. One of the biggest acting comebacks during the most recent award season has been that of Pamela Anderson, with the former Baywatch star still managing to dazzle audiences with her no make-up looks at the age of 57. Anderson has seen her stock rise following her acclaimed performance in Gia Coppola’s melancholic drama “The Last Showgirl”, a semi-factual tale of the once world-famous Vegas showgirls, who have since become redundant amongst the modern day entertainment scene.

Having visited real-life Vegas strip-spectacular show Jubilee! prior to its closure in 2016, screenwriter Kate Gersten originally penned a stage play focusing on the Vegas showgirl and the associated working class in America’s “Sin City”. The unproduced play, entitled “Body of Work”, was picked up by Coppola, who has utilised the play’s original structure to produce an beautifully intimate motion picture.

Being part of the expansive Coppola Hollywood dynasty, which includes the likes of Nicolas Cage, Sofia Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire and of course, the family patriarch and entry into the industry, Francis Ford Coppola, Gia has filmmaking in her blood, but I must admit that I have never really found myself invested in her previous works. Her debut feature, “Palo Alto”, recieved solid reviews and has a strong cult following amongst the indie scene, however, I found the film’s unfocused and quirky plot to be a tad indulgent, despite the visuals and performances showing that Coppola has some directorial talent. As for her second feature “Mainstream”, I found that Coppola completely dropped the ball on what was a promising conceit, by bluntly tackling online celebrity culture rather than cleverly satirizing it, allowing the audiences to reach their own verdict on the topic of viral fame.

So to say I was somewhat apprehensive going into “The Last Showgirl” would be an understatement, but in the four years since her last feature, Coppola has proven to have matured considerably in the director’s chair, by delivering her most understated, but also most powerful piece of work to date.

“The Last Showgirl” Trailer | Madman

Having been cast directly by Coppola following the release of her documentary “Pamela, a Love Story” in 2023, Anderson stars as 57-year-old Vegas showgirl Shelly, who has performed for three decades in Le Razzle Dazzle, an erotic French-style revue on the Las Vegas strip. Due to her advanced age, and years of experience, Shelly is seen as a mother figure by her dancing co-stars Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), both of whom see the show purely as a source of income, and not as the high-class piece of art and entertainment Shelly does. The girls along with the rest of the cast are informed by the show’s producer, Eddie (Dave Bautista), that the show is scheduled to close in two weeks due to declining ticket sales, and is to be replaced by a more risqué, and contemporary burlesque, circus show.

A crestfallen Shelly reaches out to her estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who is now a student in Arizona having spent most of her adolescence living with family friends following Shelly’s inability to care for her as a single mother, largely due to her dedication to Le Razzle Dazzle. Despite keeping in contact with her mother, whom she addresses by her name, Hannah remains emotionally distant having still never forgiven her mother for failing to raise her.

With no means for retirement, Shelly begins to worry for her livelihood alongside her older friend, Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), who now works as a cocktail waitress having been ousted from Le Razzle Dazzle years prior. Despite facing potential financial ruin due to her age impacting potential auditions elsewhere on the strip, Shelly remains dedicated to the show she first starred in during the 1980’s, and sets out to prove her daughter, and those who doubt her wrong by performing Le Razzle Dazzle one last time.

Going into “The Last Showgirl”, most of my attention was on Anderson, who has been making waves in front of the media following this career revival, and I can say with relative confidence that this the best performance by the glamourous star’s career. There is so much to unpack with her performance as Shelly, with Anderson’s naturally high toned voice adding to the deluded showgirl’s dream-like perception of Las Vegas, famously a city of sin. The movie’s early scenes are hazily shot by cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, further emphasising Shelly’s inability to see Vegas for what it really is. As the narrative unfolds, the frames start to become more crisp to signify Shelly’s acceptance of contemporary Vegas, where class and glamour have made way for hot, young and sexy, something Shelly vocally objectifies whilst the younger Jodie, demonstrates her audition routine for another show.

It comes as a surprise to no one that the modern entertainment industry has a preference towards younger talent, something that is also tackled in Coralie Fargeat‘s excellent satirical body-horror “The Substance”, where Demi Moore‘s ageing TV aerobics instructor is swiftly replaced by the younger and more “perfect” Margaret Qualley. This awareness the audience whilst watching “The Last Showgirl” makes the whole experience heart-breakingly tragic, as Shelly fails to see what we all can, or at least she refuses to acknowledge it. In any other year, there would have been more recognition for Anderson for this performance, who did land Golden Globe and SAG nominations, but was largely overshadowed by Demi Moore’s Hollywood comeback, who ironically lost out on Oscar gold to the much younger Mikey Madison. All the supporting cast are excellent too, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Dave Bautista being particular stand outs, with the latter also potentially delivering a career best performance in a rare dramatic, non-action role.

Coppola is right in saying it is an intimate movie, and clocking in at under 90 minutes it does feel rather thin narratively, with sporadic cut aways of a glittered up Anderson gazing across the Vegas skyline occupying a good ten minutes of this. But I think the lack of substance almost adds a sense of realism to proceedings, without the need to rely on melodrama or peril, instead purely focusing on our protagonist’s livelihood and realisation that her fantasy life has come to an end. It is brisk, it is emotionally captivating and while it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, the uncertainty of the ambiguous ending only further adds to the tragic central character arc.

The Last Showgirl is now showing in UK Cinemas