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Review: The Last Showgirl (2024)

A Poetic Ode to Dreams, Regret, and Reinvention

Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is a breathtaking, deeply felt meditation on time, memory, and resilience, set against the neon glow and lingering shadows of Las Vegas. At once an elegy for a fading era and a celebration of reinvention, this film is not just a triumph—it’s a revelation.

Pamela Anderson delivers a career-best performance as a former showgirl grappling with the passage of time and the ever-changing landscape of the Strip. Her performance is nuanced and radiant, filled with aching vulnerability and fierce determination. Anderson’s portrayal transcends nostalgia, giving us a woman who is both haunted by the past and courageously forging a future.

The film’s emotional core reaches its most devastating moment when Jamie Lee Curtis, in a performance of stunning poignancy, takes center stage. As Annette, a once-revered Vegas veteran, Curtis breaks every heart in the audience with an impromptu solo dance to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart. It is a scene of raw, wordless storytelling—a lifetime of love, loss, and longing distilled into movement.

The entire ensemble is remarkable, each actor embodying the ghosts and dreamers of Las Vegas with staggering authenticity. Coppola’s direction is superb, transforming the city into a character in its own right. The Las Vegas she presents is not just a backdrop but a living, breathing entity—a place where sorrow, regret, and hope coexist in dazzling contradiction. Through her lens, the Strip is both a beacon and a graveyard, a world of illusions that holds deeper truths beneath the surface.

The score is another triumph, with Miley Cyrus’ haunting ballad Beautiful That Way adding an ethereal layer to the film’s emotional depth. The music, much like the film itself, feels both intimate and grand, personal and universal.

Ultimately, The Last Showgirl is both a tribute to independent cinema and a bold revitalization of the genre. It honors the past while fearlessly breaking new ground, crafting a cinematic experience that lingers long after the final frame.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – A masterpiece.

Wren Valentino

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