By -

The Last Showgirl

Nothing scares an artist more than the feeling of irrelevance, so I don’t know if it’s anxiety or vanity that 38-year-old Gia Coppola decided to tackle this subject in her third feature. Is she genuinely concerned that the fickleness of time will one day render her talents irrelevant, or does she think this only applies to some outdated and classless performers?

As the title implies, The Last Showgirl follows a group of Vegas showgirls in the last two weeks before their theatrical revue show is finally replaced by a crude variety show. Shelly (Pamela Anderson) has been a feature in the show since the 80s, when every casino on the Strip had one of these, and the girls were treated like superstars. Now, they are relics of the past, there to please a gradually dwindling audience who we never see. Everyone seems to know they are an endangered species except Shelly, a charming delusion.

The other dancers work on finding new solutions, especially Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka), who have youth and talent on their side but also the awareness that cruder dance work is not beneath them. At the same time, Shelly’s estranged daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd), is in town to reconnect with the mother and understand why she was absent for most of her life. Even then, Shelly is unable to grasp the gravity of the situation. Not even when the show’s producer, Eddie (Dave Bautista), opens up to her does Shelly understand the weight of her actions and her level of responsibility.

In a way, she’s a perfect character, and Anderson plays her with the perfect cadence. Soft voice, sounding like Marilyn Monroe, because even her idea of how a woman should speak is stuck in a past that may never have existed. She’s the opposite of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. The two films complement each other, but Coppola’s is sadder and a little bit more unfair to her protagonist. Shelly is, for lack of a better comparison, a shell of who she used to be – still reliving moments of her past as if they vindicate her future, unaware the show was always a lewd spectacle for horny men on a night out in Vegas. In The Wrestler, he is painfully aware time has passed; in The Last Showgirl, she isn’t.

And that’s where the film falls apart. Anderson shows her best side – never quite fragile but still selling Shelly’s delusion with compassion. On the other hand, Coppola is not as sympathetic to the world she built. She lingers her camera on her characters and writes them with care and life but often reduces sometimes them to grotesque portraits, like Norma Desmonds with botched makeup.

Coppola makes the right decision to shoot this on captivating 16mm grainy stock, but so many shots are out of focus or outright ugly, grainy to the point of no recognition. It’s like she wants Shelly surrounded by ugliness, which is probably the case, but forgive me if I find it unfair to her character, who only has the best intentions in her heart—even when Coppola reveals the length of Shelly’s selfishness.

The Last Showgirl is tender enough to hold its ground, primarily because of Anderson’s performance. The last scene plays like a fantasy and only works because Anderson earns that moment, even as Coppola keeps reminding us of the stark reality. In a way, it’s misguided, but it doesn’t take away all the enjoyment.

Verdict: 3 out of 5
For everyone who believed that Anderson was a diamond in the rough who was never given the right chance. This is it, and she owns it. This film wouldn’t be the same without her.

 

Bird

Andrea Arnold’s Bird can trick the distracted viewer into thinking it’s just another typical British kitchen sink drama and borderline poverty porn. The main characters live beyond the reality of council housing; the outside world of middle-class people is reduced to the background. There’s nothing exploitative about their circumstances unless we, as the audience, apply our own standard (but that, dear reader, is your own fault and prejudice).

Bird starts with Bailey (Nykiya Adams in one of the most exciting films debuts in a long time), a 12-year-old girl going through the worst time a tween can go through. Puberty is about to hit her hard; she wants to hang out with the cool gang but isn’t old enough for them, the world feels both too large and too small for her, and, on top of it all, her father Bug (Barry Keoghan) just revealed he’s marrying Kayleigh (Frankie Box). Too much change for humans to take.

In the middle of this hurricane, Bailey meets the mysterious Bird (Franz Rogowski), a strange man lost in the field, looking for his family who may live in the nearby council housing. Bailey is driven to help Bird’s endeavour while also trying to support her peers, from her half-brother facing fatherhood to her other half-siblings living with her mother and an abusive man.

What is interesting about Arnold’s approach is that she characterises Bailey’s world with enough earnestness to make it unique. This is not a film about the social consequences of poverty in the formative years of a teenager. It is a film about the healing power of finding a community that supports you. A central point of the film deals with Bug learning the lyrics to Blur’s The Universal to sing at his wedding, and the aforementioned gang of aggressive teens only wreaks havoc on local paedophiles and abusers. This contrasts with Bird, driftless and ghost-like; he grew up aimless, with no community to support him. A literally lost child, both abandoned and forgotten. There’s a moment near the end where the guests at a wedding all dance to Rednex’s Eurodance classic Cotton Eye Joe perfectly, showing that, despite everything, Bailey will be alright.

Bird may be Arnold’s most misunderstood film. It adds fantasy realism and lacks the punch of something like Fish Tank and the hipness of American Honey. But it’s also her most caring work so far, and maybe that’s why I connected with it so much. She perfectly uses music to heighten her character’s strength. Bug drives around in his electric moped blasting the Fontaines D.C. song Too Real, Bailey’s brother Hunter (Jason Buda) raps to a Sleaford Mods tune (whose member also cameos later in the film). There’s a beautiful moment where Bug and his buddies try to sing Coldplay’s Yellow, and it reminded me of that endearing video of a bunch of rough-looking British men in a choir singing Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply. Music is so inherent to the magic of this world, complements it, rounds it up.

The lead singer of Fontaines D.C. said Too Real was inspired by the T.S. Eliot poem Preludes. “None can pull the passion loose from youth’s ungrateful hands”, they sing. The poet says: “I am moved by fancies that are curled // Around these images, and cling: // The notion of some infinitely gentle // Infinitely suffering thing.”

Verdict: 4 out of 5
For those who like a healthy dose of fantasy realism that is not patronising to its subjects. It’s so cool they even got Burial to write the score.

Ticket giveaway – Spit

LSJ and Transmission Films have 10 double passes for the upcoming Australian comedy Spit, starring David Wenham.

After 20 years on the run overseas, small-time ex-criminal Johnny Spitieri (Wenham) slips back into Australia on a false passport only to find himself locked up in an immigration detention centre with a massive target on his back as old enemies come looking for him, determined to settle old scores. As he struggles to stay one step ahead, the resourceful Spit finds new friends in detention, teaching them his version of mateship, and what it means to be truly Australian. Cinemas March 6. Click here to see the trailer.

For a chance to win one of the double passes, email your LawID number to journal@lawsociety.com.au with the subject line SPIT before 5pm on Tuesday February 25