Back at work, she and the dancers flurry to get ready for their cue in a long running show off the Vegas A-strip. Everyone, young to Jessie's vintage, is clearly part of a warmly functioning team. That night they are told, at an informal dinner, that the show will close in a few weeks. The younger ones at least have their youth to move on. Shelly doesn't even have a pension plan.
This is a tale of that pause, the barely creditable stretch between comfort and the gutter. Friend Annette, a little older, found a way, waiting cocktails at a casino and playing the tables. Shelly has danced for a living for decades. What's she meant to do, competitive shed building?
This is a character study, shot cinema verite style and was not written for plot but for the examination of a person under pressure. It's not the pressure of Wall St high flyers but it does concern the effective denial of a woman's life and career after decades of reasonable success. The audition we see at the start just looks like more of the same. Shelly understands this and knows that a bigger decision is on the way but what she cannot do at any cost is allow the fear or the despair to show through.
Jamie Leigh Curtis (very strong as friend Annette) signed on to this film when she learned that Pamela Anderson was to play Shelly. To Leigh Curtis, it was a vindication of Anderson's own career and Anderson's boldness in stepping up was impressive. The casting is inspired. Anderson plays a woman under constant attack, whether the snidery of her fellow dancers, the ugly home truths of the casting director at the audition, her daughter's rejection and distancing, and more, and with a clear understanding of this she has Shelly keep the flag flying, offering insights and platitudes alike in her Monroe purring voice that sounds like musk Lifesavers. If you're not watching closely, you might dismiss this as ditziness but that voice and living doll demeanour have kept her going through decades of abuse and judgement, a battering marriage and this latest turn of the screw. Being the sexy voiced Vegas dancer with the Pollyanna take on everything keeps the claws of the universe at bay and her life has been spent mastering it.
Also in the cast are the aforementioned Jamie Leigh Curtis whose Vegas tan and white lipstick and constant margaritas are heralded by a voice like Autumn leaves and a bitterness that keep her armed. It's miles away from not just Laurie Strode in Halloween but the severe Deirdre in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Her dance towards the end, done in spite of the jaded ignorance of the passers by, is breathtaking. Kiernan Shipka, whom I first noted in Mad Men as the Draper daughter, has been quietly rising through the indy ranks and forging a dependability. Her response to the reception she gets when she turns to Shelly for help is a stark pointer to the kind of toughness she will need on this career path. Wrestling star turned actor Dave Bautista continues to demonstrate that he is more impressive when playing the scenes with worldly tenderness than with power.
And then there is Gia Coppola. Last year, Coralie Fargeat headbutted us for over two hours with The Substance until we understood that it was the film of the year. The new Coppola on the block chooses something more like John Cassavettes, shooting on gritty, blown up 16mm and keeping the lighting thick and grimy for the interiors and only slightly fresher for the outside. Her take on the expected deterioration of these women asks us to follow and observe the beginning and the end of this process. There is a moment during one of Shelly's dances where she uses one hand wrapped around her back to grasp her waist. In the light of the stage it looks malevolent, like the claw of a roulette table monster making free with the staff. The best scenes in Paolo Alto were not flukes. This new one works, quietly, but it works.
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