Toronto film festival: an empty-headed attempt to give the star her version of The Wrestler is a regrettable misfire

The desire to see Pamela Anderson receive her flowers after being mistreated and denigrated by numerous parties – from the media to men in the industry to most recently Hulu – is strong enough to initially outweigh other concerns over her big-screen comeback. Even framing it as such feels like an understatement, the star having never received anything like the dramatic lead she’s been given in Vegas-set character drama The Last Showgirl. It’s a genuinely huge moment for Anderson after regaining control of her narrative with a well-received turn in Chicago on Broadway and a likable Netflix documentary which allowed her to right some wrongs.

But while goodwill might have propelled her here, to a ritzy Toronto film festival premiere, it can only take her so far. The film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola’s daughter Gia, is wholly unworthy of any hype that might have preceded it, a forgettable, empty trifle at just 85 minutes, failing to give us enough of anything and certainly, sadly, failing to prove Anderson’s mettle as a dramatic actor. It would, inarguably, be a challenge for even the most equipped of performers to make much of TV writer Kate Gersten’s vapid script but it’s truly insurmountable for her. It’s an awkward misjudgment of a performance, the star retreating to the same shticky sitcom excess she used in her short-lived comedy series Stacked, relying on manic overemphasis regardless of the occasion. She just can’t make any of it work and Coppola almost seems aware of this, overstuffing her film with ponderous, dialogue-free scenes of the character looking wistfully off into the distance. Well-shot but dramatically inert, these moments are indicative of the film at large, seeking meaning out of nothingness.

The Last Showgirl is screening at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution