REVIEWS. Two Very Different Women: THE LAST SHOWGIRL & HARD TRUTHS.

At first blush, the story of an aging Las Vegas showgirl (Pamela Anderson) and a depressed black woman of similar age living in London (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) doesn't conjure up immediate similarities or themes for comparison. And, in truth, The Last Showgirl and Hard Truths are two very different films in both style and content: the former, a very intimate American portrait of a once beautiful Vegas strip entertainer coming to terms with her talent and her age; the latter, an organically inventive British treatise about coming to terms with the realities of life, family and relationships. You may find yourself drawn more to Anderson's Shelley than Jean-Baptiste's Pansy as Shelley's vulnerability and innocence seem much more accessible than Pansy's misanthropic sarcasm and detachment from those who love her.

Still, both characters embody, in their own way, some of the burdens inherent with the social-cultural expectations placed on them as women and how, at certain moments in life, we must pause to re-examine who we are, what we want, and why we are here. If that sounds like we're going to talk about existential crises, your assessment is spot on, though the individual journeys to self-awareness in these two movies are as dissimilar as oil and water, and about as likely to blend together. In a year that has seen an increased number of films explore female quinquagenarian watershed events that may redefine who they are and reshape their future, here are two more stories to contribute to the cinematic dialogues already begun through Babygirl, Maria, The Substance and A Room Next Door.

Hard Truths is the kind of small, intimate conversational film that would seem to play just as well on the small screen as the big one. And, for sure, you can watch it at home without a sense that you're missing something. But I would argue that viewing Hard Truths on TV will likely mean you'll miss some of the subtle, nuanced gestures that writer/director Mike Leigh is so astute in capturing. There's not a glance, a gesture, a movement, a tear that is wasted and, in many ways, the big screen forces you to take notice of each tiny motion, maneuver, every shift, every stir, every blink and fidget.

British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who previously collaborated with Leigh on 1996's searing Secrets and Lies, here portrays Pansy, a thoroughly unhappy fifty-something who lives in a lovely North London flat with her husband Curtley (David Webber) and twenty-two year old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Curtley runs what appears to be a very successful plumbing service, and an unemployed Moses lives at home and plays video games, venturing out only to take random walks.

Pansy is hypercritical of everything and always complains that she is tired: she nags Moses about leaving open candy wrappers and banana peels around the house, barks at Curley for not taking his shoes off when he enters their home, and regularly cleans a leather couch that looks like it's never been used. In fact, their entire flat is so sparsely decorated as if no one lives there.

Pansy is fearful of leaving the house and, when she does so, has a tendency to get into arguments with strangers. When browsing through a store looking for a new couch, she grouses at a young couple whose playful behavior strikes her as inappropriate:

Pansy: Are you going to purchase this sofa...gyrating all over the place?

Male Customer: Are you going to buy it?

Pansy: No, I'm not. I don't want to take your DNA home with me, thank

thank you very much.

Pansy's tirades are relentless and mean-spirited. After the encounter with the couple and then a sales associate whom she chides for harassing her before storming off, she sits sulking in her car, only to be approached by a man looking for a parking space. The two engage in a hostile exchange, during which Pansy accuses him of trying to bully her before declaring: "Your balls are so backed up you've got sperm in your brain!"

Pansy's apparent contempt for the world is direct and often bitingly humorous, but Leigh and Jean-Baptiste are not here to to entertain with glib cynicism. After several contentious encounters, Pansy returns home and retires to her bed (a regular practice), only to have Curtley return home from work and inquire about dinner:

Curtley: The kitchen's a mess.

Pansy: Then go clear it up. Hovering over me like a ghost.

She recounts her experience in the parking lot, claiming she could have been killed and that the man looking for a parking space could have had a knife.

Curtley: Are you gonna cook dinner?

Pansy: No, Curtley. I am not going to cook dinner. If you want dinner, cook

it yourself.

Later, Pansy ventures downstairs and finds Curtley and Moses eating fried chicken out of a bucket. She scowls at them with utter derision, saying: "That's disgusting. You know I can't stand it in the house. My mother used to make me eat it." Ah, yes, Pansy's mother Pearl, who died unexpectedly five years earlier, whose photo still adorns Pansy's home, may have contributed to some of her anger and unhappiness, and reminded me of a line from a Philip Larkin poem,

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.*

Pansy's near paranoia, her fears of feeling threatened and unsafe, are never fully explained, though both Leigh and Jean-Baptiste provide glimpses into Pansy's personal history that begin to illuminate her own inability to experience happiness, or what New Yorker Magazine film critic Justin Chang calls "a reminder that happiness seldom means, or requires, the absence of conflict or disappointment."

Pansy's younger sister, Chantelle (Michelle Austin, paired again w/Jean-Baptiste as they were in the aforementioned Secrets and Lies), seems to be the polar opposite of her older sister. At once compassionate and cheerful, Chantelle owns and operates a hair salon, and we observe her ability to engage with customers sharing all sorts of personal issues. Neither judgmental nor enabling, Chantelle has a keen empathy for others, including her two grown daughters, Kayla and Aleisha (Ani Nelson and Sophia Brown, respectively).

Where Pansy is hypercritical of Moses, Chantelle's relationship with Kayla and Aleisha is easy and open. Their ability to tease each other, to poke fun at each other's fantasies and foibles, is a joy to behold. Chantelle is less successful applying her cheerful compassion with Pansy who refuses to accept her sister's attempts at reconciliation, or even civil discourse.

When Chantelle finally persuades Pansy to come with her to the cemetery on Mothers Day, years of repressed hostility and mental anguish surface: Pansy's conviction that everyone hates her, that she only married Curtley to feel safe, that she hates Moses for not having a job and a life of his own, and that Chantelle was always their mother's favorite. Even the usually sympathetic Chantelle is at a loss for how to comfort her sister.

Later, back at Chantelle's home, Moses reveals that he's gotten Pansy flowers for Mothers Day, the first time Pansy can recall ever receiving anything from him since he was five years old. The camera lingers on Jean-Baptiste's face which morphs into a canvas of emotions: first, no reaction, then a growing smile that bursts into laughter before dissolving into tears. But this is not a cathartic cry, it is a slow build to shows layers of pain interrupted only briefly with a hint of joy and an almost singular tear that appears in the corner of her eye, then gradually makes its way down her cheek. This scene alone is a masterclass in expressing emotions without revealing completely their source.

It's a sobering film, one which doesn't always tip a hand to where it's going. Leigh depicts moments with each of the characters, sometimes without a sense of which one is the protagonist or how an individual scene is related to the plot, and always without giving closure or resolution to the story. In this case, questions about how we experience happiness - do we choose to be happy the way Chantelle seems to, or reject it as Pansy does? How do societal expectations for women impact their ability to find joy? Is happiness sustainable, or fleeting? Does it exist at all, or do we create moments of bliss as a way of coping with the horrors of the real world?

For Pansy - and perhaps, for everyone - the hardest truth of all may be that there isn't one clear gospel, one preferred path. How we are left to navigate life is more formidable than facile. When she finally shifts from her usual gripe of "I am tired," Pansy says something even more harrowing: "I am lonely." Indeed. And that may be the hardest, scariest truth of all.

Less philosophical, but more focused on women of a certain age and the false truths they tell themselves, is fledging director Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl, which also serves as a kind of comeback/centerpiece for former Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson. Anderson who, like Demi Moore, is probably not at the top of anyone's "A" list of serious female actors, climbs into aging showgirl Shelley's skin and finds a comfortable fit.

Anderson has said that she knows Shelley, probably because Shelley is not unlike Anderson herself: once recognized more for her physical attributes than her acting ability, a stunning woman whose physical beauty has arguably faded over time and whose only sense of value stems from an earlier time when she was admired for her looks. Anderson reportedly turned down the role initially (too close to home?) until her son Brandon intervened and convinced her to take a chance on making the film. Like Anderson's own career where her talent was regularly questioned and when the release of a private sex tape (with then-husband Tommy Lee) seemed to ring a kind of career-ending death knell, Shelley's actual talent and demand by the entertainment industry are brought to the forefront when the Las Vegas Revue she's been part of for over thirty years closes, leaving her with little prospects for a continued future as a dancer.

Shelley has allowed herself to be so defined by her job as a showgirl that she has literally given up everything else in her life: she is estranged from her daughter, her family, an ex-husband. Shelley has abandoned everything and everyone for a life on the Vegas strip, and when that job vanishes, so does everything she believes in about herself.

Anderson, who appears sans make-up for most of the movie, conveys Shelley's loneliness and heartbreak with ease, but doesn't always reach as deeply as Jean-Baptiste to explore the more unplumbed emotions and disappointments that have brought Shelley to this crossroads. Coppola (granddaughter of famed director Francis Ford Coppola, niece to director Sofia Coppola and daughter of Gian-Carlo Coppola, who was killed in a boating accident several months before Gia was born), continues the family heritage of exploring bold new topics in films, here centering on women of a certain age coming to grips with the realities of the world in which they live.

In what is arguably the movie's most effective component, Jamie Lee Curtis shines as Shelley's best friend Annette, a waitress and former showgirl whose battle with alcoholism and gambling has led to, among other things, homelessness. Neither Shelley nor Annette have planned for retirement or for any life beyond what they have known on the Vegas strip. They are both examples of people on the fringe, probably more like most people than we might like to think, especially those with similarly bleak financial outlooks. Coppola bathes both women in that kind of desert sunset haze that highlights both their isolation and the sometimes gauzy way they look at themselves and their lives. Too, the use of a hand-held camera creates a counterpoint to the gritty underworld backstage on the Vegas strip.

Using Kate Gersten's script based on her book Body of Work, Coppola raises questions about the price women pay for their beauty and their career choices. Curtis has been outspoken about standards of physical aesthetics and how women are often subjected to unrealistic expectations of desirability, including the pressure to remain agelessness, herself posing in 2015 at age 57 without make-up or retouching for More magazine. She has been tireless engaging in dialogue about how woman are treated as they age and has encouraged her female acting peers to be fearless accepting wrinkles, weight gain, and all the changes that take place during and after menopause.

Anderson, too, seems to have embraced Curtis and Coppola's philosophy of examining issues associated with aging in ways that are raw and unapologetic. Though Anderson's Shelley seems to remain emotionally clueless throughout the movie, compared to Jean-Baptiste's Pansy, both characters contribute to the current dialogue on how society, how families, how arbitrary perceptions of beauty and behavior, often create personal, psychological and mental health crises for women that are difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.

Decades ago, the actor Bette Davis quipped, "Getting old ain't for sissies," and Hollywood has often perpetuated the glorification of youthful beauty by relegating roles for women over forty to bit parts or just plain bitches. No romantic leads for "older" women, but plenty for men regardless of age. It was quite common to see a 60-year-old Robert Redford play opposite a 38-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer in 1996's Up Close and Personal, but a 57-year-old Nicole Kidman involved with 28-year-old Harris Dickinson in this year's Babygirl still elicits comments of inappropriate or far-fetched circumstances.

Go figure. Hollywood - and society - have a ways to go before catching up with real world situations and the realities facing women as they age. This year, fifty-something women have taken a front seat at both the box office and on the awards circuit by making courageous choices about films and film roles for women. Let's hope that movies about important themes regarding women of all ages will continue to be made. Then maybe the "razzle dazzle" that Shelley identifies as the enduring archetype of the Vegas showgirl will not be the last word when celebrating the experience of being a woman.

Of the two movies, Hard Truths is clearly the better film in both depth of content, style and performance, though Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis certainly deserve kudos for their fierce portrayals of women on the edge of despair. It is, nonetheless, Marianne Jean-Baptiste whose dark turns as Pansy makes the near-perfect foil to the luminous Hortense, her buoyant character in Secrets and Lies. Acting companion Michelle Austin completes the delicate pas de deux that enfolds the two sisters in much the same way she provided support as Hortense's friend Dionne in Secrets. Twenty-five years of acting separateness did not diminish the close rapport Jean-Baptiste and Austin convey through their performances.

Together, Hortense and Pansy bookend Jean-Baptiste's collaborations with director Mike Leigh and cinematographer Dick Pope, Leigh's longtime cinematic partner who died in October and to whom Hard Truths is dedicated. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute than marveling at Pope's fine camera work in this thoroughly captivating, ultimately haunting examination of what happiness is, or might be. To finish Larkin's thought,

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.*

Now that, my friends, is indeed a very, very hard truth.

No?

The Last Showgirl and Hard Truths are now playing in limited release in theaters.

*Philip Larkin, High Windows