The Last Showgirl is the second of the two films directed by the Coppola family members this year, this time it’s Francis’ granddaughter Gia who’s in the director’s seat. Whilst in Megalopolis, Coppola Sr saw the death of society through the lens of a man with the power to change it, Coppola Jr see’s the changing of society from the point of view of someone completely powerless to change anything all even in her own life, someone who has dedicated (or wasted, as her daughter might say) her entire life to pointless ‘nudey’ show which is now finally coming to a close.

There are very interesting themes involved in this film, Las Vegas is changing faster than ever as society changes. The general tourists don’t want to see the ol’ razzle dazzle anymore, they want something raunchier than this and that is something that 59 year old Shelly Gardner, played in a career best performance by Pamela Anderson, cannot keep up with. It’s a path well trodden but a film with the classic ‘old days are over’ message does always touch me, it’s sad to see these people dedicate their lives to something that gets slowly phased out.

Without Anderson this film does not work in the slightest. The comparisons between this and Anderson’s own life are too obvious not for this to feel like a personal project for her. Arguably one of the most famous people in the world when Baywatch was on our screens, ever since she has been sliding slowly into obscurity and I’m sure a lot of people would’ve been surprised to see she was acting in such a serious project. You can see that in her performance that this means more to her than any project she’s done for a long time. Pamela and Shelly have lived such parallel lives and yet she completely disappears into the character to me. I very much hope that the critical success she has garnered from this role leads her to get some further roles in more feature films because she has the chops and if she matches that with the same drive she brought to this character then I don’t think that this is the last we have seen of her.

Most of the supporting cast are decent, Dave Bautista’s wig in this is utterly glorious. One thing I will say is that Billie Lourd as Shelly’s daughter is one of the worst castings I have seen in a long time. 32 year old Lourd should not be playing a 22 year old character, she does not at all look that young anymore and she just didn’t fit in with the character. I felt her acting was the worst of the cast, and later on it’s implied she is Bautista’s daughter…she is maybe the palest actor I have ever seen.

Visually it is shot very interestingly, with an often vignette style framing (sometimes quite blurry) and a documentary style shaky cam, it certainly gave the film a solid visual style. You can tell that there were budgetary concerns with some of the scenes looking a little too sparse, and for me the third act absolutely falls of a cliff in terms of quality of story. The script is just fine when it should be so much better. It is obvious that The Wrestler is a clear influence on this film, and if it had the same quality as The Wrestler then it would’ve had the same success, but alas it just didn’t reach those heights. The ending doesn’t stick the landing for me at all, so a film with such promise falls flat on it’s face and ends on a sour note.