Showgirls

[StevePulaski]

Showgirls (1995)
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Rating: ★★★½

Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls electrifies in its depiction of lewd but evocative stage production, tantalizes in the way it attends to many of our sexual fantasies, and captivates by offering up a cogently told story about a stripper who views herself as a dancer and is determined to make herself seen as one.

What better person to direct such a concept than Verhoeven who, years before this, was giving us a steamy erotic thriller, a captivating action movie about intergalactic travel, an action film addressing the militarization of our police forces, and after this particular film, another science-fiction film about humans invading bug-infested planets?

With all that in mind, Showgirls is Verhoeven's most humanistic film in that it revolves around a plethora of believable characters in decidedly ugly situations. The concept of vulnerability and nakedness runs through Showgirls like glitter down the glossed and hairless body of a stripper and creates a film that, while never outrageously sexually explicit or profane, always has an evident sense of ominousness.

The film revolves around Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) a hitchhiking dancer traveling to Las Vegas with hopes to become a professional one as she navigates the business. She quickly befriends and subsequently lives with Molly (Gina Ravera) after her ride steals her luggage and her money, with Molly having connections to several dancers at the club known as "Goddess," one of the most renowned spots in Vegas. When the famous Cristal Connors (Gina Gershon) sneers at the fact that Nomi works at the strip club Cheetah's, Nomi storms out in a fury of rage yet with a determination to get a more respectable dance-gig overtime.

Cristal eventually recruits Nomi to be a dancer at Goddess and thus begins her navigation through the world of "high class" dancing, which the viewer, and Nomi, learns has a backstage just as seamy and deceitful as the one at Cheetah's. She is managed and guided by Cristal, her boyfriend Zak (Kyle MacLachan), and Tony Moss (Al Rachins), the show's cantankerous, miserable director.

Verhoeven's "delicate balance" - what I've come to call his evident trademark of handling two dichotomous thematic or narrative inclusions in his films - here is that, for one, Showgirls is a film that appeals to the masturbatory fantasies many males posses, and two, still makes the film bear a sense of danger in ways some writers or directors could've overlooked or downplayed. Verhoeven and his right-hand-writer (no pun intended) Joe Eszterhas allow the film to take on a life of its own during the elaborate and decorative dance sequences, levied by spectacular, racy costume design and Jost Vacano's inviting cinematography. The choreography involved in the dance sequences at both Goddess and Cheetah's elegantly combines raciness and seduction to create a wonderful atmosphere that viewers can enjoy and be treated to amidst all the snakery and backstabbing.

That bleeds into Verhoeven's desire to keep everything in the film feeling so dangerous or unsavory. The characters always feel like they're positioned on the edge of a cliff, inching themselves to the deep end; prolific moviegoers might take note of this wisdom moreso than the person who raced out to theaters or Blockbuster because they thought they were going to see a pornographic Hollywood movie. On the contrary, Verhoeven and Eszterhas so beautifully flirt with the idea of how cut-throat and dangerous this business is.

Consider the sequences that Nomi and Zack share together. To begin with, they're often behind the back of Cristal, who knows but tries not to know, and they're also ostensibly directed in Nomi's favor when they're really not because Zack is an untrustworthy soul. Setups like that make you realize how fearful you are for the well-meaning protagonist at hand, not because she cannot take care of herself (in fact, that may be the most laudable aspect of the film in that Nomi is strong, independent, and self-absorbed in the best possible way), but because she believes one is not like the other (Zack is not like Cristal).

The way Showgirls mixes passion with fear, seduction with tension, and metaphorically reaches down our pants to please us while placing its other hand on our backs to throw us down a flight of stairs is absolutely incredible. Verhoeven brings the best out of his spacious, freeing locale of Las Vegas, and the performances, most notably that of Berkley and Gershon, work to tantalize in more ways than just being purely carnal or sexual. If there were ever a film worthy of a second or third look due to all its stigma and needless controversy in hopes to see its maturity and complexity as a film, this is the one.

NOTE: Check out a discussion of Showgirls on my web-show Sleepless with Steve, which airs every Wednesday evening at 8pm CST on Twitch!

Starring: Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Ravera, Al Rachins, and Robert Davi. Directed by: Paul Verhoeven.