Pamela Anderson is the heart of The Last Showgirl

There’s a saying that if you find a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Shelley, the protagonist of The Last Showgirl played by Pamela Anderson, takes that to heart. She has spent decades as a lead dancer in the Rockettes-style troupe at a Las Vegas show, one that is now about to be replaced by a circus company. Soon, she’ll have nothing left to do, no pension, no security about her future. A woman who has ended up alone after leaving behind her daughter, Hannah, played by Billie Lourd, when she was just a child. Hannah always came second to Shelley’s dream, a dream she achieved at a very young age but is now losing as she grows older.

The Last Showgirl: Everything You Need to Know Before Its April 3 Release

The strength of The Last Showgirl lies in the fact that Gia Coppola, the director and screenwriter known for Palo Alto and Mainstream, has no intention of tearing down or destroying the illusions that have become Shelley’s everyday reality. There is never a moment where Shelley stops believing that the Rockettes were the greatest performers the world has ever seen. The film doesn’t highlight a clash between old and new, nor does it dwell on the skepticism or dismissiveness of her younger colleagues (brilliantly played by Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka), who try to wake her from the utopia she has built and lived in for years. Instead, it’s about a deep, unshakable love for her craft, and that same love radiates from Coppola (niece of Francis Ford Coppola, the mastermind behind Megalopolis), infusing Shelley with a passion so immense that it extends beyond the screen and into the hearts of the audience. They watch Shelley grieve and wither as the end of her irreplaceable show approaches, yet she never gives in, never bends. This isn’t about the passage of time—it’s not a generational conflict.

Gia Coppola Delivers a Heartfelt and Melancholic Film

The beauty and sorrow of The Last Showgirl lie in watching its protagonist, trapped in her own world for a lifetime, unable to step outside of it. She is a modern-day Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, but without the tragedy of madness and the melodrama of Billy Wilder’s classic - she’s still bathed in lights, always ready for her close-up. She is the Pearl of a Ti West-style horror trilogy, but one who actually made it, and for that reason, she refuses, even for a second, to let go of her spotlight. The film is also a love letter to devotion - devotion to one’s craft, to the thing that defines a person’s existence. Watching The Last Showgirl is a deeply moving experience, with a protagonist you wish nothing bad would happen to, even though you know she must soon face the one thing she has spent her whole life avoiding: reality. A reality that cannot cover the future in sequins and vibrant fabrics, in feathers and oversized wings. A future that is coming fast, and for which she is entirely unprepared.

In a Las Vegas that feels like a faded photograph, full of fleeting, shimmering memories of a time long gone, Coppola frames a Pamela Anderson radiating tenderness. Her voice and angelic presence help shape Shelley’s naive, generous, and reckless soul. Coppola captures in a single frame a dreamy, anxious, longing, and worried gaze - a tight smile that carries the joy of a past that no longer exists. But Shelley doesn’t know that yet. Or rather, she refuses to know. And by living the dream with her, we step inside The Last Showgirl. We witness an Anderson who is steadily moving away from the sex symbol image that made her famous - transitioning from Broadway’s Chicago to Gia Coppola’s third film, seemingly with a brighter future ahead than her character. Shelley, on the other hand, is overflowing with humanity, while those around her remain too dry, too unfeeling. In the end, it’s the longing for a life that glows, but no one can live under the spotlight forever.