‘The Last Showgirl’ Review: The Casting Is More Interesting Than the Part in Pamela Anderson’s Not-Quite-Comeback

In the 2022 HBO docuseries "The Last Movie Stars," Ethan Hawke floats the possibility that the great Joanne Woodward's risk-it-all role — the one that could have won the "Three Faces of Eve" star a second Oscar, had it gone differently — was playing a failed starlet who resorts to burlesque to get by. Adapted from the William Inge play "A Loss of Roses," it was a part intended for Marilyn Monroe, who died, so Woodward stepped in and gave it her Method-acting all. Alas, the studio lost faith, recut the film and slapped a tacky new title on it: "The Stripper."

In a different world, " The Last Showgirl " could have been such a vehicle for its leading lady, Pamela Anderson . Tightrope-walking the gossamer line between objectification and empowerment, the project lands amid a charitable reappraisal of Anderson's career, during which a memoir, a Netflix doc and countless thinkpieces have caused some to wonder whether they might have underestimated the erstwhile sex symbol. Based on the evidence seen here, they did not. Anderson's a star, but her range is limited, bringing little to a thinly written role — a conclusion further reinforced by Jamie Lee Curtis ' force-of-nature supporting turn as a slightly older but still-sizzling cocktail waitress.

Granted, there's something poignant and vulnerable in Anderson's decision to play a Las Vegas dancer who's lost her sparkle. Shelly joined the "Razzle Dazzle" revue in 1987 (two years before "Baywatch" debuted on TV), sacrificing everything — including the traditional duties expected of parents — to live her dream of performing on the Strip. More than three decades later, she struggles to keep up with the younger girls, whom she treats like adopted daughters. While Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Marianne (Brenda Song) are flexible enough to get other jobs, Shelly is knocked sideways when she hears from stage manager/old flame Eddie (an uncharacteristically gentle Dave Bautista, doing his best Kris Kristofferson) that the show is closing.

Director Gia Coppola 's "The Last Showgirl" opens with Shelly's first audition in ages. It's a painful thing to watch. She's rusty, and the guy doing the hiring (played by another member of the Coppola clan) is harsh in his feedback. Shelly's knee-jerk response — "I'm 57, and I'm beautiful, you son of a bitch" — sparked applause at the movie's Toronto Film Festival premiere, as audiences heard Anderson, not Shelly speak those self-empowering words. Her affirmation may be valid, but there's something pathetic, not to mention unprofessional, in the way she delivers it. Does Shelly not know how an audition (or her industry) works?

More realistic than not, "The Last Showgirl" makes it clear that Shelly has standards. She could've been a Rockette, but chose Vegas over the chorus line. She doesn't escort on the side, and she won't do the kind of vulgar adult show Vegas audiences are looking for these days. Her routine has its roots in France, Shelly tells her daughter (Billie Lourd), sounding self-deluded. Coppola withholds any footage of the "Razzle Dazzle" show — where Shelly and her troupe preen like so many peacocks in their sequined bodices and feathered headpieces — until the very end, promising a backstage look at these deities instead.

But without that magic spotlight, they seem ordinary, or else endearingly tacky at times. No one wants to see a fantasy object buying groceries or balancing her checkbook, and lest that seem sexist, know that the same goes for race-car drivers, soldiers and superheroes. "The Last Showgirl" intends to reclaim the nobility of these women, to remind that they're real people, with dreams and disappointments of their own. But a little more dimension would have gone a long way. While that lack of detail means you can read pretty much whatever you please into the part, Anderson's hesitant performance drains the character of her supposed charisma.

That's especially true in scenes shared with Curtis, who plays her outgoing best friend Annette as if she were the MVP in a Christopher Guest movie. Where Anderson does her no-makeup, WYSIWYG thing, a kabuki-crazy Curtis trowels on silver eyeshadow and more fluorescent orange tanner than Donald Trump, upstaging her timid, whisper-voiced co-star. Not that anything could compete with the sight of Curtis gyrating to "Total Eclipse of the Heart" on the casino floor — a spectacular trust-fall exercise the film doesn't know how to handle.

Although Anderson winds up feeling like a supporting character in her own movie, her involvement surely felt like a coup for Coppola, who treats her casting the way "The Wrestler" did a has-been Mickey Rourke. That movie is so clearly the model screenwriter Kate Gersten had in mind — right down to the title character's fumbling attempts to patch things up with an estranged daughter — that it's hard not to compare the two. Where "The Wrestler" dealt in life-and-death stakes, "The Last Showgirl" asks only how Shelly will cope when "Razzle Dazzle" closes. For those who've dedicated their entire careers to a single company or pursuit, only to be pushed out to pasture, that could be enough.

Vegas is rich turf to explore the washed-up wreckage of the American dream, the way "The Misfits" did Reno. But that movie had a soul-piercing screenplay, and it had Marilyn. "The Last Showgirl" has access to Vegas, but resists the clichéd shots Paul Verhoeven gave in his polar-opposite "Showgirls" movie. DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw observes with a floating wide-angle camera, reducing the city — and the recently demolished Tropicana casino — to a blur in the background (at times, even the characters aren't in focus). A last pass in post accentuates the pinks and magentas in particular, giving the entire film a distinct, faded-glory feel. Still, you know something's off when a film lets Anderson fade into the woodwork.