It\u2019s not a problem early on. The first act has an off-the-cuff, captured but heightened quality, steeped in small backstage details of a Las Vegas show: high heels clanging on the metal stairs, dressing room gossip, quick-change chaos, snatches of overheard jargon. This is the last of its kind, the final remaining old-school Las Vegas revue, but it\u2019s \u201ca dinosaur,\u201d and the new casino owners are shutting it down in two weeks. This is tough news for Shelly (Pamela Anderson), who has been with the show since 1987. What does she do now? What else can<\/em> she do? \u201cI don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m gonna do for Christmas,\u201d she despairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her best friend, showgirl-turned-cocktail-waitress Annette (an almost unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis), commiserates. When a younger showgirl asks about retirement, she snorts, \u201cAre you crazy? Bankers<\/em> retire. It\u2019s not like I have a 401k.\u201d Shelly resorts to ranting in the dressing room about the class and tradition that the show represents, finally granting,\u201cMaybe the times have changed,\u201d and shrugging \u201cse la vie\u201d like she\u2019s trying to convince herself\u2014and failing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, so good. But once the table is set, it goes downhill (and steeply) with the introduction of Hannah (Bille Lourd), a daughter so distant, she doesn\u2019t even call her \u201cmom\u201d anymore. We\u2019ve seen estranged parent\/child relationships like this a million times before, and this one is dusty as hell, hampered by trite dialogue (\u201cThis was worth missing bedtime for most of my childhood?\u201d) and forced, obvious conflicts. The moment the character is introduced, it\u2019s impossible not to recall The Wrestler<\/em>\u2014another story of a disreputable performer (played by a tabloid favorite in career rehab mode) coping with aging out of the profession while trying to repair a relationship with an alienated daughter. The Last Showgirl<\/em> is not burnished by the comparison. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s almost saved by the quality of the acting. Dave Bautista is genuinely soulful and affecting as the show\u2019s backstage manager, a grizzled Vegas dead-ender who\u2019s still telling war stories of his days crewing for Siegfried & Roy. It would be easy to make this guy a joke; Bautista wisely chooses to underplay both his good and bad qualities. Kiernan Shipka<\/a> and Brenda Song are stuck in thin roles as the younger showgirls who look to Shelly as a mentor, but they both find moments of grace, and lean into them. Jason Schwartzman only has one scene, but he\u2019s so good in it, so smarmy and real, that the picture all but recalibrates around him. And the tenderness between Anderson and Curtis, which makes her centerpiece scene\u2014a spaced-off casino floor dance to \u201cTotal Eclipse of the Heart,\u201d intercut with Shelly going through it<\/em>\u2014not only work, but serve as something of a mission statement for movie that is ultimately about the power of reappropriated kitsch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And to that end, Anderson is good, if not great; it\u2019s a performance that feels pasted together, saved from going too far over the top by the occasional carefully placed cut. She\u2019s best in the closing scenes, when Shelly is at her rawest, and we sense Anderson peeling away not only the artifice of the script but the line between the character and the actor (or perhaps more accurately, the persona and the person). She does what they can; everyone does. But The Last Showgirl<\/em> needed major script work early on, when it could have been made over into something fresh and vulnerable, rather than another variation on a tired formula. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Last Showgirl” is in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/last-showgirl2-1024x512.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nC+<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n