The Last Showgirl (2024)

There’s something really quite touching about Pamela Anderson’s performance here. She (“Shelley”) is what you might describe as a more refined topless dancer who considers herself more a dancing entertainer, replete with her own body weight in feathers and costume jewellery. She has an estranged daughter “Hannah” (Billie Lourd) and it’s through that strained relationship that we discover a little of just how many sacrifices she has made throughout her life, many that her daughter seems to consider more neglectful than beneficial. To add to her woes, their stage manager “Eddie” (Dave Bautista) announces that playing to ever dwindling audiences has caused their bosses to give them a fortnight before they close. With no good news on her horizon, she has to audition in an entertainment climate that isn’t remotely receptive to her work whilst trying to reconcile with her daughter. Luckily, or not, she has the plentiful advice of her floor-walking barmaid friend “Annette” (Jamie Lee Curtis) who has been in the game for just as long, has a penchant for a margarita and is also pretty down on her luck in an industry where youth is key. It’s Curtis (and Bonnie Tyler) who maybe offers us the most telling sequence of the film as she dances on a table and displays a vulnerability that I think many might feel as they age and feel more redundant - even in a less exposed professional environment. It doesn’t help that they haven’t much to show for their careers, either. This is a film about ageing that Anderson holds together strongly and emotionally and though the substance of the plot might not be the most robust, the two leading acting efforts are powerfully charismatic.