We all love a comeback, especially when it comes from someone who has never been taken seriously as an actor, but who proves that all it takes to earn praise is the right role. This is essentially the impetus for The Last Showgirl, in which Gia Coppola crafts a role specifically designed to give Pamela Anderson the chance to prove herself after decades of ire and controversy made her quite a polarizing figure. The film follows Shelley, who has been working as a showgirl in a Las Vegas revue for years but is shocked to learn that their show is going to come to an abrupt end in a matter of weeks. For the younger members of the cast, this is an inconvenience, since they now need to seek out other work, while for Shelley it is a much larger problem, since she has grown so accustomed to this career, she fails to imagine her life without it, leading to an existential crisis that she desperately attempts to resolve, made easier by her support system, including her best friend, colleagues and her estranged daughter who wanders back into her life at the most opportune of moments. Following on from her ambitious but somewhat divisive Palo Alto and Mainstream (both of which have garnered cult followings), Coppola continues to use her familial legacy to fund passion projects that are decidedly off-the-beaten-track as far as subject matter and storytelling are concerned but creates something quite engaging in The Last Showgirl, a film with significant flaws, but enough audacity to earn our attention, even if it doesn’t always manage to maintain it for the entire duration. Designed more as a vehicle for its lead than as an entirely cohesive work on its own, the film does have its merits, many of which are quite effective in drawing us into the world of these characters, but not enough to be entirely convincing in some of the most important moments, leading to quite a middling but still intriguing work.

The thematic aspects of The Last Showgirl are made very clear from the start, with the first few scenes of intense exposition being designed to familiarize the audience with these characters, including their pasts and how they are connected. Through this process, Coppola can make some very keen observations about these characters and what they represent. The film quite literally starts with the protagonist being asked her name, and going into a playful monologue about how impolite it is to ask a woman her age – this immediately indicates what this film is going to say, as well as the manner in how it intends to deliver its message, which serves as a good litmus test to see whether or not the viewer will be able to find value in the film, since there isn’t much else beneath the surface. As an exploration of ageing, particularly from the perspective of a woman who is supposedly on the other side of middle age, The Last Showgirl does have some merit, since there can never be too many films that focus on the plight of older women and how the world can become a much more hostile, unfriendly place for them as they progress in age, especially those who occupy positions usually associated with younger, more nubile individuals, and where anyone who doesn’t adhere to this patriarchal, heteronormative standard is viewed as an outsider, and perhaps even outright desperate if they are seen as being past their prime. Coppola joins many other directors who oppose the idea of shoehorning women into some idealistic image and instead sets out to show that there isn’t one optimal path for a woman to choose, centring a film around half a dozen different female characters, each one unique and well-developed in their own right, but contributing to the discussions on femininity, ageing and motherhood, all of which are embedded in the protagonist’s journey throughout this film.

There is a joy that comes with seeing a formerly reviled actor getting a second chance, and while not every performer necessarily deserves the chance to give their career another wind, there are some that were severely mistreated at their peak, and warrant the opportunity to prove themselves. Pamela Anderson has never been viewed as a particularly strong actor – she has devotees, but they’re based more on her status as a sex symbol than on the quality of her acting, which was limited, to be generous. However, this does not mean it was entirely her fault – she had some talent, but it was mostly squandered in the roles she was given, which were barely more than airheaded women who used her visual appearance as the primary selling point. Coppola gives her the chance to play a more complex character, and the results are solid – she’s still not an entirely confident presence on screen, but she’s more than passable, and there is a sincerity to her performance that makes us wonder how much she would have benefitted from such an empathetic collaboration earlier in her career, since even at its most flawed, the film is a strong vehicle for her, allowing Anderson to take on a more complex, well-written character that is defined by her imperfections, and is working to overcome them. It’s not implausible to think Anderson was drawing on some of her own experiences as an actor when playing this part, which is why there is so much compassion in every moment of her performance. The supporting cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis as the brassy best friend of the protagonist, who is struggling with her demons, as well as Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka and Dave Bautista as co-workers faced with the same uncertainty, but who seem to be more well-equipped for their ambigious future. Considering the film was designed as a showcase for Anderson, the presence of a strong supporting ensemble only makes it stronger – but this overt focus on the characters ultimately does have an impact on the film and how it explores its underlying themes.

As a result of being a film that prioritizes the performances over the execution, The Last Showgirl does falter in a few places, both technically and in terms of the narrative, which does slightly weigh it down and prevents it from reaching the full scope of its potential. The more superficial elements are easier to discuss – the film is quite simple in its aesthetic, attempting to recreate the look of 1970s character studies, intentionally looking quite grainy and out of focus in certain moments to create this image of a raw, unfurnished examination into the lives of these characters. This does lead to a few striking moments, but for the most part, it comes across as forced, especially when the frantic camera work proves to be more of an impediment to the story, stirring more disorientation than curiosity, which was not the intention. In terms of the narrative, there isn’t all that much being said here, at least in terms of conveying anything we haven’t seen countless times in the past. The themes presented in The Last Showgirl are indeed compelling, but only in how they are introduced, with Coppola bringing up several resonant ideas, but struggling to follow through on all of them. The result is quite a few sequences where the throws caution to the wind and makes some increasingly bizarre choices that can’t be entirely explained, such as the moment when the film comes to a screeching halt as Curtis’ character does an interpretive (or perhaps drunken is a more appropriate description) to the timeless classic “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, one of the several sequences where the film believes it is being nuanced and daring, but ultimately is nothing more than quite shallow in its messaging. The emotions can sometimes be too overwrought, which is peculiar considering how so much of the film wants to be perceived as a more subtle realist drama but is accompanied by far too many heavy-handed elements that can only be explained as compensation for the fact that there is not much lingering beneath the surface of the film as it intended, and instead, it needs to resort to convention to be somewhat cohesive.

The Last Showgirl is not a bad film by any means and proves to be quite effective in some areas, and it shouldn’t be viewed as a failure in any way. However, it is still a film that doesn’t follow through on most of its promising ideas – the themes are strong but still relatively shallow in comparison to what it could have been in the hands of a more detailed-oriented filmmaker. Arguably, you can imagine that this film worked better in theory since the one-line premise is unquestionably quite promising. However, the concept proves to be too scanty and thin to be entirely consistent, and outside of the strong central performance, it falters far too frequently. The emotions are not as well-crafted as they could have been with the right approach, and the lingering sense of compassion is reserved more for the performances, which are by far the strongest aspect of the film and the primary reason it works so well. Coppola has a good set of directorial instincts (and even if she didn’t, she comes from a dynasty of filmmakers, so she had all the resources needed to convincingly tell such a simple story), so it’s certainly not difficult to see why this had potential. Unfortunately, it proves to be a squarely middle-of-the-road effort that doesn’t do anything we haven’t seen many times before, and eventually just becomes a bundle of missed opportunities, especially when we consider how strong the film could have been with slightly more attention to detail and a more dedicated approach to its multitude of promising ideas.