The Last Showgirl finally gives Pamela Anderson a chance to do something besides romp on a beach, and boy does she take the opportunity and run with it. And while I’m talking about brilliant performances, Jamie Lee Curtis turns in one as well.

In The Last Showgirl Shelly (Pamela Anderson) has been a Las Vegas showgirl her entire adult life. She’s been in the same show for over 30 years. She’s proud of her work and her show. She knows what it represents historically and culturally. She loves being in the spotlight, being seen.

She’s also worried about the price of lemons and the fact that her pay is docked when her costume catches on a doorknob and rips.

Off the stage and out of the spotlight she’s disorganized and something of a mess. She’s vulnerable and afraid of growing older.

Shelly’s best friend is Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis). Annette is a former dancer, now serving cocktails and gambling away everything she has. These two have a long history of supporting each other.

Eddie (Dave Bautista) works on Shelly’s show, too. Another character Shelly has a long history with. He goes to Shelly’s home one night when Annette and a couple of the other girls are there having dinner. He informs them that the show is going to close. It’s a dinosaur and no longer relevant to a modern Las Vegas. She is devastated.

The girls Shelly works with who also heard the news are Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) and Jodie (Kiernan Shipka). They’re young, they can look for another gig. They don’t understand the importance of the show to Shelly. They regard her as a mother figure.

While Shelly is reeling from this news, her daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd) shows up to remind her she’s a bad mother. She goes to an audition only to be told she’s too old and to get lost. It’s all too much for her. She completely falls apart. Pamela Anderson handled all the emotional demands of this character so well. It was a brilliant performance to watch. She deserves all the praise and award nominations she received.

Now that Hollywood has discovered that Pamela Anderson can act, I hope she gets many more parts to play that let he show her talent.

Although The Last Showgirl is a sad tale about growing older and feeling irrelevant and invisible, it’s worth seeing because of the outstanding work the actors turned in. It’s finally available as part of the subscription price on Hulu.

Gia Coppola directed the film, which was written by Kate Gersten. Ah, the female gaze is so refreshing.