Movie Review: The Last Showgirl

The new movie "The Last Showgirl" is a very small and depressing film about an aging Las Vegas showgirl, Shelly, played by Pamela Anderson, who is 57 and a member of a long-running Las Vegas show that is going out of business. As the expression goes, "Father time is undefeated", even more for a woman whose entire professional identity depends on her looks.

The obvious problem with this movie is that the story is not big enough to hold your attention for the entire 88 minutes There are way too many slow and boring parts in this flawed overly depressing screenplay. The side stories contain some brief appearances of new characters, including Shelly's daughter Hanna played by Billie Lourd, who suddenly comes into Shelly's life after many years. We later find out that Hanna's father is the manager of the Las Vegas venue, Eddie played by Dave Bautista, who has a small part in this movie.

The other main character is Annette, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, who is a waitress at a local Casino. Along with her extremely dark facial tan, and many wrinkles, Curtis looks way older than 66, her age in real life. Annette is a character that seems to be a method to provide more filler to a relatively short movie and is mostly irrelevant to the progress of this story.

There is a scene at the end where Shelly as an aging showgirl standing on a stage lying about her age, desperate to get a new dancing job in Las Vegas, begging a cruel show director for a chance but is repeatedly rejected. After the producer tells Shelly that "her time as an attractive woman has passed", Shelly's response to the director is at first lewd and later a sad rant in a dressing room some minutes later, collapsing in grief, knowing that the only life she has ever known is over. If Pamela Anderson receives an Oscar nomination for this small movie, this scene will be the reason.

Pamela Anderson winning an Oscar for this role would be an amazing moment in Oscar history, however, this is very unlikely because this movie is not significant enough to include a win for Best Actress.

For some of the acting, despite the depressing small story, my rating for this movie is a passable 70% and a moderate recommendation.