You might have been surprised to see Pamela Anderson in a starring role for The Last Showgirl, the Gia Coppola movie which debuted last year at Toronto Film Festival. Anderson hasn’t appeared in a part that’s not a cameo for nearly 20 years, since Barb Wire. And sadly we all know how that went down with critics of the professional and armchair kind. Though, don’t call it a comeback: Anderson herself has explained she views her role as her breakout. “I’m just getting started,” she said at the first London screening of the film this week — and she already has two other big screen parts in the pipeline.
So if we are to view this movie for what it is: an indie, shot in 18 days for the film festival circuit, with an emerging actress at its helm — it is a belter. Anderson proves she can run the gamut as Shelly, a showgirl on the Las Vegas strip. She is sometimes fragile, yet dignified; sensuous on stage, yet flighty behind the scenes. And the use of 16mm film makes for a softly lensed but sparkling portrait of a hard-up real-life community — the production feels sensitively handled, finding beauty in a scene that could have been looked at through a voyeuristic lens. While a soundtrack with star power from Miley Cyrus and Lykke Li ensures you feel all the feels, even with quite a sparse script by Kate Gersten.
