the Last Showgirl

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.

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.