In “The Last Showgirl” Jamie Lee Curtis dazzles

The conversation continues as Annette breaks her flesh free from its spandex prison, the pillbox still on her head. She stays standing in her bra, g-string and sheer support pantyhose. The camera shoots Ms. Curtis here from multiple angles, and each shot reveals the body of a real, 65-year-old woman, round belly, slight sagging and all.

Yet the scene is unremarkable because Mrs. Curtis lets us see her in her underwear. It is remarkable because of Annette’s (and Mrs. Curtis’s) complete comfort in her own skin. Annette never stops chatting with Shelly and never does anything to hide or cover herself.

Also noteworthy is the director’s refusal to objectify Annette’s body. It is simply an organic part of the moment. And this, in turn, encourages the viewers to take it in the same way in the run-up: It is only two women talking, and one is half-naked – as happens every day in gyms and changing rooms.

Annette may be a former showgirl who takes her clothes off, but this was no striptease. What is revealed in the dressing room is not a “body” or a collection of fetishized parts, but a person. Annette has performed an anti-striptease.

Later, Ms. Coppola gives Ms. Curtis another poignant scene in which to recreate — and undo — classic showgirl motifs. This time, a possibly inebriated Annette, wearing her leg-and-bosom-revealing uniform, climbs atop a casino table and unbidden begins a solo dance to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the ’80s ballad about desperate longing. We can’t tell if the music is actually playing or if it only exists inside Annette’s head, but it doesn’t matter. The dance is a completely internal experience for her.

Annette dances with more heart than control. She twists and turns, clenches and unclenches her fists, bends her back, runs her hands over her body, closes her eyes in concentration. And even though she is on a tabletop, a makeshift stage, it is clear that she is dancing for herself alone, enjoying her own sensuality and inhabiting her body from the inside.