DRAMA; 1hr 29min
STARRING: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd
Downward climb: Anderson
Any illusions about the workaday reality facing a Las Vegas casino showgirl are dispelled in the opening minutes of screenwriter Kate Gersten and director Gia Coppola’s unvarnished take on dancing as hard as you can. The backstage warren of Le Razzle Dazzle revue is the engine room of its surface glitter, teeming with antsy hoofers who all appear to be teetering on edge of a tantrum.
For dancer Shelly Gardner (Anderson), this stark insularity is a second home. But after 30 years, her home is up for renovation, and when show manager Eddie (Bautista, stewing in tattooed gloom) breaks the news that the production will shut down in two weeks, to be replaced by something friskier and saucier, Shelley has no idea what to do.
The cocoon of the casino has literally been Shelly’s life. She is not close to her conflicted daughter, Hannah (Lourd), who has lived elsewhere for years. Yet two younger dancers (Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka) look to her for maternal guidance, while her closest friend, casino cocktail waitress Annette (Curtis, fabulously bosomed and hard-bitten), is also feeling the ageist employment pinch. Shelly prides herself on her artistry and is appalled by the vulgarity of newer routines — but even if she were up for their bump and grind, at age 57, that ship has long since sailed.
Spangled or bare-faced, Shelly’s wounded panic is the entire, saddening show. Anderson could have pulled this performance from her heart: She, too, is 57, and after five seasons as beach babe C.J. Parker on TV’s Baywatch, she surely has a handle on objectification. As the elemental model of a tawdry and indifferent city, Coppola’s Vegas is a vortex, heedless of the women it devours and spits out. Whether Shelly will wash up as one of them is all in the eye of the beholder.
