Pamela Anderson made a name for herself on 1990s television (Baywatch, Home Improvement) but it’s been a tougher run, speaking professionally, in the decades to follow.  She’s kept in the public eye with several film cameos (often playing herself) and celebrity appearances on the likes of Big Brother and Dancing on Ice, but not since the 1996 release of the awful Barb Wire have Australian audiences seen Anderson in a leading role on the big screen.  Until now.

Drawing from a true story, The Last Showgirl is centred on Shelly (Anderson), a 57-year-old who spent almost her entire adult life working as a topless dancer for a Moulin Rouge-style cabaret show in Las Vegas.  The pay isn’t great, and she’s made of lot of personal sacrifices along the way, but Shelly is devoted to her work.  She loves going out on stage every night in lavish costumes to the rapturous applause of excited audiences.  She’s also made genuine friendships and taken some of the younger dancers under her wing as a quasi-mother.

Her world is upended when the show’s producer (Bautista) announces that due to a changing of the times and declining ticket sales, the show will permanently close in two weeks and be replaced by a Cirque du Soleil-like act.  It’s an alarming wake-up call for the now unemployed Shelly who doesn’t know what to do.  Finding another dancing gig at her age is near impossible.  On top of that, she now faces financial woes having put aside no savings or other assets for retirement.

Directed by Gia Coppola (Palo Alto) and written by Kate Gersten (The Good Place), The Last Showgirl is rough around the edges.  I’ve no concerns with the short 89-minute runtime but you get a sense a few subplots were shortened and/or left on the cutting room floor.  As an example, the hot-and-cold relationship between Shelly and her distant daughter (Lourd) needed more depth.  There’s a similarly rushed moment involving Shelly and another showgirl (Shipka) who arrives on her doorstep begging for help.  Why doesn’t this lead to anything?

The Last Showgirl still succeeds though as a character study and it’s easy to see why Pamela Anderson was nominated by her peers for best actress at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.  Audiences will empathise with Shelly and understand (possibly relate) to the emotional rollercoaster she is enduring.  When you devote your entire life to an artistic medium and it’s suddenly taken away from you… yeah, it’s heartbreaking.  At the same time, there’s a naivety to Shelly which has you asking questions about the extent to which her problems are self-inflicted.  Should she have taken a simpler, better-paying job before now?

Bolstered by a fun supporting performance from Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once), this movie is worth your time.  Take a bow, Pamela Anderson.