Year of Release: 2024
Director: Gia Coppola
Starring: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Jason Schwartzman, Linda Montana, Giovani L. DiCandilo
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review
Gia Coppola has quietly been making a career for herself, joining the talented ranks of her family, which includes Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Nicolas Cage, Talia Shire, Jason and Robert Schwartzman. "The Last Showgirl" follows the story of Shelly, a showgirl who has worked for three decades at a venue called Le Razzle Dazzle in Last Vegas. She has a few younger friends in the ensemble, Mary-Anne and Jodie, who view her as a mother figure. Shelly's best friend is Annette, a pior showgirl herself who now works at the casino as a cocktail waitress. Shelly's world is thrown upside down when Eddie, the stage manager for the show, lets the cast know that Le Razzle Dazzle is going to close down its doors, and is going to be replaced by a more contemporary type of entertainment. While Mary-Anne and Jodie start auditioning for other shows in town, Shelly views those shows as low class, though she fears for her future and livelihood. She also reaches out to her daughter Hannah, who lives out of town and is going to college. She's been raised by family friends, and their relationship has been strained (since Shelly preferred to focus on her career while Hannah was raised by other people). While attempting to have a special moment with Eddie, the conversation quickly escalates to a series of recriminations on both parts, his towards her for not raising Hannah, and hers towards him for being a father that never acknowledged Hannah and has never been a presence in her life. As Shelly tries to figure out options for what comes next, the challenges just keep piling on.
While watching this film I had this odd feeling that this universe and what was being captured here had some similarities with the work from another writer/director, and then it dawned on me the talent I was thinking of: Sean Baker. "The Last Showgirl" reminded me of certain aspects of "Tangerine", "The Florida Project", and even "Red Rocket", though the work of Sean Baker has something going for it that I don't believe Gia Coppola has mastered just yet, namely authenticity. The narratives Sean Baker brought to life in the previously mentioned films felt very lived in and pulsating with life. "The Last Showgirl" feels more like someone's superficial exercise on what the last chapter of someone's once glamorous life is about to become. A bit like someone who is writing an article for a magazine, and who has to tag along the subject of the story for a few days. This story, authored by Kate Gersten, is not particularly revelatory, but it has enough substance to milk some ponderous questions from the central character, about her life ahead, but also about the choices that led her to where she is. What we end up getting instead, is a superficial view on someone who is confronting aging, her role in an industry that privileges youth, and past decisions that had an impact on her loved ones and her relationships, and all we get from that are long shots of Shelly looking to the Vegas horizon or smoking on the rooftop of a certain building. Gia Coppola doesn't seem to know how to illustrate the fear or terror that the character is going through, and decides to go with this atmospheric type of illustration, which works in Sofia Coppola's work, but not so much with this material (she should have looked at what Mike Figgis did in "Leaving Las Vegas" to capture a certain urgency and soul searching that happened there with Nicolas Cage and the luminous Elisabeth Shue). There are indeed sections of the film that work, namely Shelly's interactions with Eddie, and her relationship with Annette, but sadly they're not present as much as they should be. The cast is solid all around, with Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, and Billie Lourd creating the most striking characters. Pamela Anderson does a good job, but the film and the director should have given her more room to go in directions that could have been darker, and more rewarding (both for the character and for the audience). The production team is solid, though not particularly remarkable. It's watchable, but not a very memorable feature.
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