Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Last Showgirl’ on Hulu, the Opening Salvo in the Pamela Anderson Renaissance

By John Serba

There was a time when The Last Showgirl (now streaming on Hulu) might’ve netted Pamela Anderson an Oscar nomination. But, as this movie about an aging Vegas dancer shows us, those times may be gone, replaced with new ideas that leave those of us with wrinkles and gray hair feeling uncertain, pushed aside and forgotten. Which isn’t to say Anderson’s performance isn’t good – this is the story of a woman whose flagging career was based on a standard for youth and beauty, and it seems tailor-made for a star who was famous for being a sex symbol (most famously on Baywatch and in Playboy pictorials), but is now 57 and feeling contemplative about her place in the world. We saw Anderson in precisely that mindspace in the 2023 documentary Pamela, A Love Story, which prompted Last Showgirl director Gia Coppola to pitch the starring role to someone who understood the character intimately – and the result is fascinating. 

THE LAST SHOWGIRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The sets! The costumes! The glamor! This is why Shelly Gardner (Anderson) got into show business. Even at 57, multiple decades into her career as a dancing girl in old-school Las Vegas throwback show Le Razzle Dazzle, she still has glitter in her eyes. “This is breasts and rhinestones and joy!” Shelly blurts. She and her fellow dancers hustle backstage to change costumes and touch up their makeup, griping about how that door handle – when did that get installed, anyway? – keeps snagging their fairy wings. Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) see Shelly as their mother figure of sorts, with stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista), also a longtime veteran of the show, as the father. The tempo backstage is jittery and tense, but that’s showbiz, right?

Shelly lives in a modest home, where she hosts a cookout with Jodie, Mary-Anne and her close friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a casino cocktail waitress with a perma-tan and eye shadow up to here. If you need a sense of where reality fits into all this, all you need is to hear Shelly make a comment about a “501(k).” Oof. Who needs retirement savings when you live a glitterball life? Or think you live one, anyway. Eddie stops by and rains on the picnic: Le Razzle Dazzle is over. In a couple weeks, it’ll be phased out for a “dirty circus” that features acts like a topless woman spinning plates on a pole situated in her… well. You know. We’ll soon hear Shelly split the hair to delineate the difference between that and the “tasteful” “dancing nudes” of Le Razzle Dazzle. 

And where does all this leave Shelly? Feeling unmoored, and tempted to look back at the good times because it’s easier than looking ahead at uncertain times. She calls her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourde); they haven’t spoken in a year. Hannah’s 22 and graduating college. Hannah happens to be in town and drops by, and every time she calls her mother “Shelly” we feel the knife twist another eighth of an inch. Their exchange is awkward but when Hannah reveals she’s getting a photography degree, Shelly perks up, loving the fact that her daughter wants to be an artist too. What happened between them? That’ll soon be revealed, and maybe Shelly will realize that the “good times” back then cost her dearly. She’s been staving off reality for years and years. And now’s the time to deal with it. She has no other choice.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Last Showgirl finds the sweet spot between The Wrestler and Hustlers. And it touches on similar tones and themes we experienced in two other 2024 films, Anora and The Substance.

Performance Worth Watching: Without Anderson and her own real-life experiences, The Last Showgirl would likely be a nonstarter. 

Memorable Dialogue: Shelly’s reaction to Hannah’s adopted mother’s insistence that she study something more practical than photography, which would make her life more difficult: “‘Hard.’ That’s the dumbest phrase anyone told anybody with a dream.”

Sex and Skin: Toplessness, some naughty and suggestive bits from the “dirty circus.”

Photo: ©Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett Collection

Our Take: The Last Showgirl is careful not to mirror Anderson’s real-life narrative too closely – it shakes hands with some elements of her story we see in Pamela, A Love Story, then follows it to a logical extreme as Shelly shows the folly of defining herself wholly by her idealistic vision of her “art.” In that sense, we can delineate that Anderson is perfect for the role, even if it wasn’t specifically written for her; we could say the same for Barb Wire, with both films, her most notable starring roles, representing her range as an actress and unlikely career progression. Not that we should be surprised with the depth of her performance in Showgirl – we always kind of knew she had this in her, given that the role cuts close to the bone like this one does, and understanding that there’s inevitably more to any superstar’s story and identity than we’ll ever be privy to.

So consider this movie part of Anderson’s ongoing self-reclamation after periods of tabloid scrutiny, relative professional dormancy and a greater cultural movement that critically indicts the gross, shabby sexism directed at famous women, especially in the 1990s. Spurred by the documentary and her casting in a Broadway revival of Chicago, Anderson’s rejuvenated movie career begins here, and will continue with roles in The Naked Gun remake and a couple of potential prestige dramas – deservedly so, considering the complex melange of tones and emotions she brings to this Showgirl character. Through her performance, where affectation and truth collide head-on, the film becomes a quietly potent depiction of rose-colored glasses being smashed.

Anderson’s efforts suggest that without her, the film might be another forgettable, cliched story about sadness and regret. The screenplay, by Kate Gersten, can be clunky in its dialogue and contrived in its plotting, but essentially banks on Anderson to elevate it; she delivers impactful drama during a gentle knockout of a final sequence, when we finally get to see Shelly on stage in Le Razzle Dazzle. Shooting on gritty 16mm film, Coppola opens with a disorienting array of frantic, handheld closeups, but eventually settles in, counteracting the near-chaos with artsy contemplative moments featuring Anderson in the blinding Nevada sunshine, the edges of the frame hazy like a dream. Shelly’s inevitable emotional breakdown is the film’s transparent Oscar clip, and a slow-motion sequence in which Curtis dances to Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ is far too contrived in its attempt to bookend her controversial striptease in True Lies. The bumpier elements of the script don’t seem to bother Anderson, who plows forward with significant effort and insight. Despite this film’s problems, there’s little denying its melancholy power.

Our Call: You want to bear witness to the PAMELANAISSANCE, right? STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.