The Pamaissance is here. After 2022's Pam & Tommy reappraised Pamela Anderson as a sympathetic hero, the 2023 doc Pamela, a love story empowered her as someone who had been exploited by the pop culture machine and then discarded. And now she's continuing her comeback with her first starring role in ages, playing a longtime Las Vegas showgirl who has reached the end of decades-long run.
It's a perfect piece of casting, bringing an inherent sense of pathos to a character coming to terms with the realization that her most glamorous years are behind her, and that the dream she chased for 30 years is now over.
Le Razzle Dazzle is the last old-school showgirl performance left on the Vegas Strip. Shelley (Anderson) was once the star, and the show still uses an old photo of her on the poster, but now she's become a maternal figure to the next generation of dancers (played by Kiernan Shipka and Brenda Song). She's surrounded by similarly tragic figures: dancer turned drunken cocktail waitress Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis as a hot mess, not dissimilar to her role in The Bear), and the sensitive and understated stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista gently playing against type).
Gia Coppola tells this story in a way strongly reminiscent of her aunt Sofia Coppola, chronicling the loneliness and confusion of a woman trying to cling onto life as it races by. Full of voyeuristic handheld camerawork and enough lens flare to make JJ Abrams blush, the wordless shots of Shelley dancing and smoking against the backdrop of the Vegas are particularly sad and romantic.
Anderson's performance is effective if slightly one-note, with childlike naïveté that flips over into emotional outbursts. She nails it, but I was glad for the film's slim 85-minute runtime, which prevented it from getting too repetitive.
The Last Showgirl finds nuance when exploring the relationship between Shelley and her semi-estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd). In these scenes, Coppola tones down the sympathy for Shelley, whose parenting failures reveal her as more than simply a victim of circumstance.
It's a sad, redemptive story — once that will likely allow its lead actor to enjoy a renewed sense of glory that her character never will.
The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival runs September 5–15. Get information about tickets and screening at TIFF's website.