by Sophie Terakes
Worth: $17.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Pamela Anderson, Dave Bautista, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billie Lourd
Intro:
… a richly constructed and moving tale of devotion and obliteration.
There is a moment early in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl when Shelly (Pamela Anderson) stands on a derelict rooftop and contemplates her fate. She looks out over Las Vegas as though it were her audience. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw captures the city as Shelly sees it, her use of a drifting lens and grainy 16-millimetre film rendering it a hazy dreamscape. The pool of sunshine bathing Shelly’s form mimics the glow of the spotlight, her diamante-spangled bodice glimmering in shades of magenta and gold. It’s a truly resplendent scene, radiating with all the warmth of a bright Nevada morning.
However, Coppola’s film is not a portrait of burgeoning stardom but fading glory. We soon discover Le Razzle Dazzle, the revue Shelly has proudly danced in for three decades, will close in two weeks. Shelly’s former lover/stage manager, Eddie, (played with heart-rending sensitivity by Dave Bautista) breaks the news gently, but she is nonetheless devastated. While her younger colleagues pursue roles in the new sexy circus, Shelly, at 57 years old, is callously rejected by an ageist director. Having given up her daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd), and all other professional opportunities for the feathers and false eyelashes of the cabaret, Shelly (as she puts it) will now be forced to “disappear.”
It is Shelly’s gradual erasure that the film tracks. Arkapaw cleverly visualises the dancer’s effacement as she floats towards her final show. The more time Shelly spends frantically spinning in her cramped living room or dimly lit dressing room, the more the frame blurs at the edges, eradicating her from view.
The precarity of Shelly’s future is most clearly exposed in a scene depicting her best friend, Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a former showgirl turned casino waitress. Having been replaced by younger servers during an earlier shift, Annette mounts a podium and begins dancing to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Uninterested gamblers pass by as she twists and gyrates in the abject darkness, running her fingers over her bejewelled bellhop uniform. Here, Shelly’s rooftop reverie transforms into a Lynchian nightmare. Curtis gives a surreal and disturbing performance, her every movement seething with a strange mixture of self-possession and melancholy. Offering a bleak vision of Shelly’s prospects after the revue, Coppola deftly peels back the film’s gossamer veneer to reveal the loneliness of life in the shadows.
Having been routinely objectified, undervalued and overlooked throughout her career, Pamela Anderson is perfectly poised to play a performer grappling with her invisibility. Though Anderson’s dramatic range is narrow, oscillating between despair, breathless excitement and tragic naivete, she portrays Shelly with great tenderness and compassion. Coppola wisely stays close to her heroine, capturing every ounce of magic in her wide eyes and failing smile. Shelly’s story is a simple one, but Coppola tells it with a rare and admirable single-mindedness.
Shining a glittering spotlight on ageism in the entertainment industry, The Last Showgirl spins a richly constructed and moving tale of devotion and obliteration. Shelly may be relegated to Las Vegas’ dark, deserted corners, but she continues to seek the light. Gliding through a sunsoaked alleyway, wandering a hall of golden bulbs, and basking in the light of her living room projector, she dazzles her audience until the very last frame.
