The Last Showgirl reminds us that women still can’t have it all, especially as we age

In her first acting role since her devastating, candid Netflix documentary Pamela, A Love Story, Pamela Anderson is back on our screens in the Gia Coppola-directed The Last Showgirl.

The Baywatch legend stars alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, who all play showgirls in Le Razzle Dazzle, which is due to close its doors after a 30-year run. The impact of this crisis plays out for all women throughout the film, but we get particularly up close and personal with Pamela’s Shelly and the reasons why the closure of the show makes her question her identity and life choices.

The Last Showgirl is unflinching in its depiction of the ways that women are punished if they stray from the status quo, though, especially as they get older. Both Jamie Lee Curtis’ character Annette and Shelly in particular are faced with the terrifying truth that a life spent on the showgirl circuit has left them with no retirement plan or security. Annette becomes homeless, and Shelly is pushed into a difficult-to-watch storyline where she’s encouraged to pursue a romantic relationship with Dave Bautista’s Eddie, the show’s producer, for the sake of securing some form of financial security, even at the cost of her own dignity and ideals.

As Shelly comes to terms with the closure of the show, we see the ways in which she has been shamed and isolated from her family for choosing this path for herself. Her relationship with her daughter Hannah (played by Billie Lourd) is extremely strained, due to the fact that Shelly wasn’t always able to prioritise her care as a young girl due to the nature of being a showgirl. Of course, this is heartbreaking, but it also exemplifies the ways in which women are expected to sacrifice as mothers, to shy away from a non-conventional path that might fulfil them.

Why isn’t society – as well as the men in Shelly’s life, specifically – supportive of both her professional endeavours and her identity as a mother? The entire movie seems to hinge on the devastating truth that Shelly couldn’t have both the show and her daughter in her life – and the impact of what she chose, because society told her she wasn’t able to have both.