Female Film Critics 24/375
Anxiety. Claustrophobia. Dread. Paranoia: Sender has all the good stuff. To this psychological thriller mix, writer-director Russell Goldman had the good sense to add Britt Lower as the lead, with Lower (Darkest Miriam) playing Julia, a recovering alcoholic. Julia manages to be charismatic, funny and earnest all at once, and you go along happily with her on this increasingly crazed journey. The tough part is figuring out what’s real …
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Everyone needs an Aunt Helen…especially if she’s played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Good thing Ella McCay has one…to keep her in check when her fast-paced life starts to unravel. Emma Mackey is Ella, a 34 year old go-getter who’s already the Lt Governor of her home state and in the pole position for political stardom…until she gets her shot at the top job too soon.
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Freakier Friday brings a wave of nostalgia, laughter, and heartfelt storytelling. Light, fun, and expertly crafted, this sequel is poised to delight audiences of all ages. Especially those who hold the original close to their hearts. Grab your friends, your mom, your daughter and head to the theater. You will laugh. You might even cry. If Freakier Friday is a runaway hit, we may get more opportunities to feel the community of women laughing together in a crowded theater, bonding as we walk into the lobby, and maybe even admitting that some sequels are worth it.
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Jamie Lee Curtis is a comedic treasure. In the family film Freakier Friday, she eyes drugstore “senior products” with horror, wails over wrinkles and having “no lips,” gulps ugly tears, and bemoans knees not moving as fast as her mind wants. Channeling a teenager who finds her mind plopped inside the body of a suburban grandma, the sixty-six-year-old Oscar-winner is game and gloriously endearing. The film itself is funny and charming, too.
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As an admitted nostalgia nerd, I was eagerly anticipating Freakier Friday, sequel to Freaky Friday (2003) in which ‘mama’ Jamie
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Nisha Ganatra’s eagerly awaited sequel to Disney’s beloved 2003 Freaky Friday opens exclusively in theaters nationwide on Aug. 8. The long-awaited follow-up, announced in July 2024, reunites the original’s stars, 2023 Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, who are reprising their roles as Tess and Anna Coleman.
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The Last Showgirl follows the fading fortunes of a Las Vegas star, Those who still associate Pamela Anderson with Baywatch, and discount her talent, have a surprise treat in store with director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. In it, she plays the aging rhinestone-and-feathers dancer Kelly, a Las Vegas star with her thirty-year career about to end when the hotel/casino unexpectedly decides to cancel her show, Le Razzle Dazzle. Kelly’s already struggling emotionally with her teenage daughter Shelly’s reappearance, ageism, and women’s exploitation. As Shelly, Billie Lourd incorporated memories from her grandmother Debbie Reynold’s Las Vegas shows and her mother Carrie Fisher’s experiences.
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She’s been working pretty steadily since she first hung up her red swimsuit after Baywatch aired its last episode in the late 1990s, but with director Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, Pamela Anderson may have finally found the role that will put the image of her running down a beach in slow-mo to rest once and for all. She’s unforgettably vulnerable as Shelly, an aging Las Vegas dancer whose life is thrown into turmoil when her long-running burlesque show closes.
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Who would have thought that one of the most revelatory and moving movies about entertainment, women and aging would come courtesy of Pamela Anderson and director Gia Coppola? The Last Showgirl combines grit and glitz as it pulls back the curtain on a fading Las Vegas act called “Le Razzle Dazzle,” a “Follies”-like extravaganza (based on the Jubilee, the last show of its kind in Vegas that closed in 2016 after 35 years) featuring scantily clad chorus girls in giant headdresses. Coppola turns The Last Showgirl into an elegy for entertainment past and for women who paid their dues and refuse to go gently.
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Gia Coppola give Pamela Anderson the best role she’s ever had in The Last Showgirl. Like Shelley, Anderson hasn’t been taken seriously as an actress or in her personal life, and here, she gets to prove decades of her critics wrong. It is a heartbreaking story to watch but Shelley remains optimistic throughout, even in the face of despair. She retains an idealized and romanticised vision associated with old Vegas that cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw captures so brilliantly.
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