On Screen: “The Last Showgirl”
The Last Showgirl
After years of being dismissed as just a bodacious “Baywatch” babe, Pamela Anderson proves she’s a sensitive, discerning actress in Gia Coppola’s “The Last Showgirl” with perceptive Jamie Lee Curtis as her best friend.
This poignant character study revolves around 57-year-old Shelly (Anderson), who has spent more than 30 years as a feather-fanned, rhinestone-studded dancer in a gaudy Las Vegas “tits and feathers” extravaganza called “Le Razzle Dazzle.”
Shelly views herself as an artist and is inordinately proud of this tacky nudie venue, comparing it to the renowned Lido in Paris. But her world goes into a tailspin when stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) tells her that they’re closing in two weeks — to be replaced by a youth-oriented, erotic circus.
When her younger cohorts — Jodie (Kieran Shipka) and Marianne (Brenda Song) — start auditioning for work elsewhere, Shelly discovers to her dismay that her days in the chorus line are over. She has no idea what to do next and begins to wonder if her career was worth the sacrifices she made — like neglecting her now-grown, estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), who aspires to be a photographer.
At Shelly’s side is her brassy best friend, spray-tanned former showgirl Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), who now works as a casino cocktail waitress, often losing shifts to fresher faces.
With her breathy, vulnerable Marilyn Monroe-like voice, Pamela Anderson seems to relish removing her makeup and courageously showing her age, while Jamie Lee Curtis’s instinctive grasp of her character is simply sensational.
When director Gia Coppola (“Palo Alto,” “Mainstream”), whose grandfather is Francis Ford Coppola, makes a movie, it’s a family venture. Kate Gersten adapted her stage play into this film script; she’s married to producer Matthew Shire, half-brother to Gia’s cousin Jason Schwartzman, who plays a showgirl casting director. And Gia’s mother, Jacqueline Getty, designed the costumes with Rainy Jacobs.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Last Showgirl” is a melancholy, sympathetic 7, playing in theaters.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.