There’s a bluntly meta moment in Gia Coppola’s latest film where Pamela Anderson’s character, Shelly, goes on a brief tirade about the dwindling place of aging women in entertainment. A blunt and short diatribe that manages to sum up in the space of a few sentences what Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance spent 140 minutes hammering into the audience in that twisted parody of feminine self-obsessive grotesquery. At the same time, it’s a testament to the main problem with The Last Showgirl. It’s a film that isn’t saying anything particularly new, novel or surprising, but even so, it does so stylishly and efficiently, with a lot of heart.

The Last Showgirl, is an adaptation of Kate Gersten’s stage play, Body of Work, inspired by and roughly based on the closure of the real Las Vegas Strip spectacular show, Jubilee!. The film opens a window into the life of ageing showgirl, Shelly Gardner, the main star of ‘Le Razzle Dazzle’, during the final two weeks of performances before the show is mothballed after many decades onstage. During this period we see her go through an existential crisis, surrounded by her friends and co-workers, as she tries to process the impending trauma and reconnect with her estranged daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd).

It’s a warts and all look into the real lives of people working in that industry, and the passing of an era in more ways than one. The end of the show, and the French revue show format is tied firmly into the deeply rooted sentiment of how old and how out of touch Shelly is with the real world. She’s no great thinker, or planner. She can’t keep track of changes to her schedule, or the people or places around her, where even a many months old alteration to a stage door surprises her to her detriment. It’s a story about people stuck in place, having to confront the difficult realities of life moving on without them.

The performances are brilliant, with several members of the cast playing somewhat against type. Anderson’s Shelly is a loveable but ditsy older woman, speaking in a kittenish Marilyn Munroe accent, frequently breathless and overwhelmed by the situations but full of heart and resolve. Dave Bautisa is also an understated standout as the house stage technician and producer, Eddie; all nervous glances and quiet words, speaking volumes to past relationships and old hurts that are only hinted at in the film. There’s also great work by Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka as a chalk-and-cheese younger pair of showgirls who look up to Shelly as a maternal figure and role model.

Coppola directs the piece with a gentle but measured touch, giving everything a handheld documentary feel, even down to the over-saturated 16mm film-stock, complete with pops, scratches and hairs jammed in the gate in various shots. The performances are realistically awkward, and at times uncanny for a film, with long pauses and silences in scenes, and frequently no real resolution. Much of this feels like it stems from the theatrical nature of the screenplay, adapted by Gersten herself from her play. It’s a film of quiet scenes of people talking in rooms, interspersed with montages, and overlaid footage of the characters going about their lives.

The side effect of this is that there’s an unsatisfying quality to the film that never quite resolves. Scenes start and end often with no clear dramatic resolution, and with no real emotional arc either. This is an honest slice of life story where we fully understand the characters, in no small part due to the exemplary performances all round. Yet at the same time, it’s missing that special sauce, and just ends up feeling a little drab and disappointing as a result. But if nothing else, it’s perhaps the film that finally thirty years on, will wash the taste of Showgirls out of the mouths and minds of audiences, and help realise the forgotten dancers of Vegas as real people with hopes and dreams.

On general theatrical release now