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You Can’t Ignore Pamela Anderson’s Face
Anderson’s performance in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl often elevates a rote, repetitive plot.
For the teen and 20s-omething members of the revue, like Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song), that means leaving the venue’s relative coziness — its producer Eddie’s (Dave Bautista, as lovely in his melancholy here as he was in Blade Runner 2049) soft-spoken paternal leadership, Shelly’s flightiness and nerves before each show — for more sexualized productions like Hedonist Delight. Anderson’s casting is the film’s coup de grâce: The actress’s own experiences of being sexualized then discarded align with Shelly’s character, and she brings an earnest pride to scenes where she has to talk about her work (even the toplessness of it) that might challenge assumptions about the kind of women who take off their clothes for money. Its smartest tactic, though, is how it maintains us within Shelly’s perspective, handing her chunks of dialogue about the sophistication of the show and the allure of Las Vegas that seem to be in direct contradiction with her otherwise modest life — her small home, her basic groceries, her somewhat outdated fashion sense, her lack of savings.
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