'From the grand-daughter of the director of Megalopolis!' is precisely not what the publicity for Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl is saying. (Not even 'From the cousin of the star of Jiu Jitsu!') There are many entirely sensible and indeed laudable reasons why this should be: no-one wants to give the impression that they are cruising to success on the back of some glittery family connections. Also, I suspect that no sensible person wants the name Megalopolis anywhere near their new film, something which is unlikely to change for many years in the future.

The Last Showgirl seems to be doing all right for itself without exploiting the Coppola name, anyway: it's had a good run at a lot of the smaller film festivals, picking up awards along the way (including the only Razzie anyone actually wants to win, i.e. the one for career redemption). This has even translated into a couple of acting nominations at events like the Golden Globes and the SAG, not to mention an appearance by star Pamela Anderson at the BAFTAs – so far as I can see, Anderson's strategy throughout the publicity tour for the movie has been to turn up without any make-up, which is. . . well, look, I'm not the sort of person dead set on enforcing cosmetic gender norms, obviously, but the fact that a fabled glamourpuss like Anderson goes largely make-up free in the film is surely one of its points of interest to curious potential filmgoers: for the star to keep this up during the publicity is effectively second cousin to the much-criticised practice of putting all the twists and other good bits in the trailer.

Not that this is the kind of film heavily reliant on plot twists for its effect, of course. The setting is contemporary Las Vegas, where dancer Shelly Gardner (Anderson) has spent over thirty years as a lynchpin of a rather tacky and old-fashioned revue 'spectacular', the Razzle Dazzle. But now times are changing, with more edgy and explicit entertainment in the ascendant, and the Razzle Dazzle duly gets cancelled.

This naturally occasions some soul-searching for Shelly, not to mention a reflection on long-term life choices: her decision to prioritise dancing in the revue has resulted in a partial estrangement from her daughter (Billie Lourd), something which her quasi-maternal relationship with the younger dancers on the show (Brenda Song and Kiernan Shipka) only partly compensates for. The closest she has come to a long-term commitment was a fling with the show's producer (Dave Bautista) many years earlier. And what can she expect from the future? Become a cocktail waitress like one of her friends (Jamie Lee Curtis, giving a performance which it is genuinely very difficult to concisely do justice to)? Give up the thing which has defined her life so far?

A fair bit of gentle buzz around this one recently, but I really wasn't sure if I was going to break the habit of a lifetime by actually paying to watch a Pamela Anderson movie (I think the only one I've actually seen at all is Barb Wire, which, God help us all, probably constituted the peak of her dramatic career until this film came along). But then the co-spousal unit expressed an interest in going to see it (the light of my life's film preferences can be mysterious and unpredictable) and so naturally I went along too. And for a while I wasn't sure if I hadn't made a bad call, for the opening of this movie really makes a big ask of the unsuspecting audience – much of the film has an unfiltered, almost documentary naturalism about it, few concessions are made to help the audience get up to speed with who's who, and the film is shot on 16mm film, often using a handheld camera (this means that some shots are actually out-of-focus). It's all a little bit off-putting.

But the film is worth sticking with, as this story of a group of people unexpectedly losing their jobs turns out to be involving and even quite moving as it progresses. There's something very poignant about the way that Shelly has somehow managed to preserve her own innocence and illusions about the show – that people come to see it for the elegant costume designs and choreography, that she was hired for her dancing technique – and their eventual collapse around her ears certainly provides Anderson with some heavyweight material to work with.

Whether or not this counts as an opportunity for Anderson to show her range is another question, of course, for it would be a very generous person who suggested there has been much variety in her career to date – a quick look at her filmography reveals that far and away her most frequent role has been as a character known as 'Herself' (appearances in 65 different films and TV shows). Arguably then, for most of her career Anderson has been referred to as an actress at least in part as a sort of courtesy. The absolute bare minimum you can say about this film is that she does seem to be trying hard, often with effective results. It's genuinely a bit wrong-footing to watch a long dialogue scene about two characters trying to resolve some long-standing issues in their relationship, with the roles performed by Anderson and Dave Bautista, but one shouldn't let the impulse to smirk obscure the fact they don't actually embarrass themselves. (You know Bautista has thrown himself into this role, as he has been issued with a wig that makes him look a bit like Barry Gibb from some angles. The effectiveness of the hairpiece is limited, though, and some of the shots of Anderson and him having dinner together do resemble a romantic assignation between some delicate exotic waterfowl and a cement mixer.)

Oh, I should just give the jokes a rest for once, for this is an obvious sincere and frequently very effective movie, and an attractively filmed one, as well. In the end it is compassionate and humane, refusing to mock or criticise Shelly for the decisions she has made, but at the same time unsparing in considering the consequences of this. Whether this marks the beginning of an unexpected third act in Pamela Anderson's career or not, I don't know, but this is a commendable film in many ways.

More Awards Waffle

Now, some internet-based-pretend-film-commentators might be inclined to coyly mention the fact that they called Anora as the best film of 2024 some months ago, but now the dust is settling I can't help thinking how much more interesting it would have been if The Substance had picked up Best Picture instead – never mind this being equally well-deserved, it would have done a lot to dispel the aura of portentousness that often surrounds the Oscars – and they could have recreated the final act of the film on-stage during the awards ceremony! Wouldn't the sight of Chalamet, Brody, and the rest of them getting sprayed with fake blood from a fire hose have been a moment for the ages? Oh well.

No runaway winner, this year, anyway, which feels fair – the closest thing to a runaway loser was obviously Emilia Perez, although the strange story of what happened to this film and its reputation would require more time and space than I have available, unfortunately. A Complete Unknown probably has grounds for being hard done by, as it's seemed to struggle to convert nominations into awards across the season.

Over at the Razzies it was a vaguely similar story, with things boiling down to a three-way race between Madame Web, Joker: Folie a Deux and Megalopolis (it occurs to me I've probably seen a slightly higher percentage of the Razzie nominees than films up for Oscars). Once again justice was probably served, as Madame Web is a genuinely awful film (awful to the point of actual incoherence), while Megalopolis and to a lesser extent the Joker sequel are movies whose reach exceeded their grasp – though Joker 2 does feel like a film actively working quite hard to alienate the audience, which is a tough choice to understand or defend. Francis Ford Coppola was on bullish form after receiving the Worst Director Razzie – 'I chose not to follow the gutless rules [of] an industry [which is] terrified of risk'. You have to concede he may have a point – still, shame the actual movie wasn't better.

Awix

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