The Last Showgirl Review (2024): Nostalgia, Ageism, and the Dream That Won't Die

She gave everything to the stage: her youth, body, and love. But when the music stops, who is she?

The Last Showgirl (2024) Movie Poster

Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl is a hauntingly intimate portrait of a woman who has outlived her dream. Starring Pamela Anderson in a career-defining performance as Shelly Gardner, the film explores the bittersweet intersection of nostalgia, ageism, and the relentless pursuit of passion. It serves as a love letter and a cautionary tale, acknowledging the beauty of chasing a dream but not shying away from the harsh reality of what happens when the world moves on without you.

For three decades, Shelly has lived for the applause. Le Razzle Dazzle show isn’t just a job; it’s her home, her heartbeat, her reason for waking up every day. But now, the world around her is changing. The elegance of old Vegas is being replaced with flashy, vulgar performances that Shelly can’t recognise. Worse, the industry that once celebrated her now treats her like an afterthought.

Coppola captures this slow, painful unraveling with a delicate touch. The shaky camera lingers on Shelly’s worn-out dressing room, her old costumes hanging like ghosts of the past. The film grain, the faded glitz of her home, the flickering stage lights; all echo her refusal to let go. Shelly isn’t just fighting for a job; she’s fighting to exist in a world that no longer makes space for women like her.

Pamela Anderson as Shelly Gardner

Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a heartbreaking foil, an aging showgirl turned cocktail waitress who still clings to the glamour of her youth. Her burnt-orange hair and silver lipstick make her a walking time capsule, proof of what happens when the dream lasts too long. Annette drinks to forget, Shelly fights to prove she still belongs. Both are tragic, unwilling to admit that the world has already moved on.

Shelly’s love for the stage has cost her everything, including her daughter. Hannah (Billie Lourd), now grown and adopted by family friends, harbours a lifetime of resentment. She remembers the nights she sat alone in the car, waiting for a mother who never came. When Shelly tries to reconnect, Hannah’s pain spills over: “You gave me up for a show nobody even watches anymore.” It’s a gut punch, one that Shelly refuses to absorb.

She snaps back, insisting she did her best and was chasing her dream—wasn’t that what life was about? But the film doesn’t let her off the hook. Passion is beautiful, but it can also be selfish. Shelly’s devotion to her art blinded her to everything else, and now she’s left wondering if it was all worth it. The film doesn’t give easy answers. It simply presents the heartbreak of a woman who bet everything on a dream and lost.

Billie Lourd as Hannah

Her audition scene is particularly brutal. Shelly walks into the room with all the confidence of a woman who’s spent 30 years commanding a stage, only to be told within minutes that she was never really that talented: just young and beautiful. The words hit like a death blow. Her life’s work, reduced to a fleeting moment of desirability. The rejection is too much. She storms out, humiliated and broken. It’s one of the film’s most devastating moments, and Anderson plays it with aching vulnerability.

Anderson understands Shelly’s pain because, in many ways, she has lived it. Once one of the most desired women in the world, she, too, has faced an industry eager to discard her once her youth faded. This performance is her reckoning, her quiet declaration that she was always more than just a pretty face. She brings Shelly to life with raw emotion, making every moment feel painfully real.

Jamie Lee Curtis, meanwhile, is magnetic. Even when she’s just sipping a margarita in the kitchen, she commands attention. Annette is funny, tragic, and painfully self-aware; a woman who sees herself in Shelly but is too scared to admit it. Their scenes together are electric, filled with unspoken truths and buried regrets.

Jamie Lee Curtis as Annette

As Le Razzle Dazzle prepares for its final curtain call, Shelly is forced to make a choice. She can move to Arizona and try to repair her relationship with Hannah, or she can stay in Vegas, take a job as a cocktail waitress, and remain close to the only life she’s ever known.

Then, for the first time, we finally see her perform. The lights hit her face, the music swells, and she steps into the spotlight one last time. She envisions Hannah and Eddie (Dave Bautista) watching her, proud, and amazed, as if everything has come full circle. But is it real? Or just another illusion...a dream she refuses to wake up from?

The ambiguity of the ending is perfect. There’s no neat resolution because real life doesn’t offer them. Shelly’s love for the stage is unshakable, even if it has cost her everything. And maybe, in the end, that’s the tragedy and the beauty of it all.

The Last Showgirl isn’t just a film about an aging performer, it’s about anyone who has ever loved something so fiercely that they couldn’t let go. It’s about the pain of being told you’re no longer needed, about watching the world move on without you. It’s devastating, beautiful, and deeply human.

Shelly Gardner may be taking her final bow, but the ache of her story will stay with you long after the curtain falls.

Shelly's last performance

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Behind the Scenes: Gia Coppola's Vision - A Nostalgic Elegy for the Forgotten

In The Last Showgirl, Gia Coppola paints a tight, melancholic picture of an in-time woman with visual storytelling, plunging the viewer into the disintegrating world of Shelly. The film's cinematography mirrors that of Shelly's mind—grainy film stocks reflect a past era, and jumpy handheld sections capture her unease as her career unravels. Coppola's decision to set Shelly in dark, cluttered environments only adds to her loneliness, contrasting with the neon sheen of Las Vegas, a city that never ceases to change, even if she will not.

Sound design also plays its part in building Shelly's world. The distant burble of slot machines, the muffled cheers of crowds, and the distant whoosh of silk costumes against the stage further build the idea that she performs in a world that no longer hears. Coppola effectively uses sound at critical moments—Shelly's humiliation at audition is in virtual silence, so her rejection is devastating, and the climactic performance swallows her in the deafening applause she's always dreamed of, real or imagined.

Production design speaks volumes: Shelly's house, stuck in time, is a shrine to her former fame, cluttered with old furniture and yellowed posters. By contrast, the younger dancers glide effortlessly through sleek, contemporary rooms, a discreet but powerful commentary on changing entertainment across generations. Coppola's deployment of blocking in Shelly's interactions—tending to place her slightly off-center or behind objects—visually underlines her gradual disappearance from the world she once dominated.

For filmmakers and film enthusiasts, The Last Showgirl is a masterclass in how to apply cinematography, sound, and production design to convey a very human story. Coppola, as her grandfather Francis Ford Coppola did with The Godfather, understands that sometimes the strongest moments are the ones that remain unspoken, between the unpleasant little silences. If you appreciate the understated art of visual storytelling, take a step back in film history and view The Godfather once more—a film where every shadow, silence, and prolonged glance tells of power, heritage, and the irreversible passage of time. Read my analysis of The Godfather vs Scarface: A Tale of Two Chairs & Two Legacy and note how the two Coppolas use the camera in the destiny of their characters.