Much like its gorgeously-crafted vision of Las Vegas, “The Last Showgirl” exudes the glamour of a bygone era that, while beautiful, ultimately rings hollow. There’s quite an intriguing story at the heart of the film that never fully succeeds in taking shape, leaving the audience with only glimpses of a truly compelling story.
Directed by Gia Coppola, “The Last Showgirl” centers on Shelly (Pamela Anderson), a Las Vegas showgirl who has to come to terms with the sudden cancellation of the show she has been a part of for 38 years. Shelly works to solidify her now-uncertain future as a dancer while reckoning with her past self and dreams, an arduous process complicated by the reappearance of her daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd), who seeks closure with Shelly.
Clearly unique to “The Last Showgirl” are the pastel visuals that wash over the whole film. As in Coppola’s previous directorial works, a distinctive, dreamy haze envelops the film, a visual feat made possible by the inherently-muted-yet-striking beauty of film’s color palette. This choice of stylization creates a captivating atmosphere, particularly in the backstage dressing room scenes, where the extravagant costumes and glittering jewelry of the showgirls stand out brilliantly against the softer pastel backdrop. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who had previously collaborated with Coppola, captures a sort of quiet glamour that characterizes the film’s immersive and beautiful vision of Las Vegas.
However, the dreamy atmosphere and visuals were not enough to compensate for the characters and the relationships between them, which often felt more like rough sketches than fully-realized ideas. The relationship between Shelly and Hannah is quite important to the narrative, yet nothing much seems to come of it, particularly due to the lack of development that Hannah suffers from as a character. The audience is only afforded the basic facts of Hannah’s life and motivations, despite her thematic importance equalling that of Shelly. The film never provides a definitive arc that explains Hannah’s resentment toward Shelly. Instead, we are presented with a heated argument where Hannah delivers an angry speech revealing new details about their past — details that are introduced abruptly and never revisited or explored further. By the end, Hannah is simply Shelly’s estranged daughter, despite how important their relationship is.
With this lack of character development, it feels as if the visuals took priority over building a strong narrative, particularly with the use of complex montages — to a fault. I never thought I would have anything bad to say about montages as an intense admirer of how effective they are in showing the beauty of the environment in which the narrative takes place. “The Last Showgirl” really took this to heart and showed off the breathtaking visuals of Las Vegas in its own style, complete with Anderson’s Shelly looking contemplative and lost. However, at one point, such montages occurred after almost every other scene, causing the montage to slowly lose its effectiveness. While these montages do depict the sense of loneliness Shelly suffers from, they simply offer the fact of her loneliness without expanding on either its root or Shelly as a character.
Despite the rough nature of the film, it’s Anderson’s incredibly-heartbreaking performance as Shelly that smoothes out some of the story’s rough edges. Anderson brings a certain charm to Shelly that she is easily able to pull back to display the more cruel and broken parts of her character that unfurl as she confronts her uncertain future. There’s a sense of bottled tension that Anderson is able to constantly keep a hold of underneath Shelly’s smiles and loose demeanor that adds to the growing instability she starts to feel every day. It’s this tension that explodes in a harrowing breakdown Shelly experiences at a dance audition where the director tells her she is not enough, nothing more than an echo of her former glory. Anderson shines as Shelly, and her performance truly is the centerpiece of “The Last Showgirl.”
Although filled with glamorous visuals and an interesting focus on the impact of sudden change, “The Last Showgirl” does not fully explore the potential of its story. There’s a strange emptiness to its dreamscape Las Vegas setting that is never addressed and, while the visuals dazzle and the performances enrapture, you can’t help but feel that there is more to this story than what is being told.
