Review of Showgirls (1995) by Yorkman — 06 Jan 2016

Paul Verhoeven is one of the most 'out there' directors of his generation. In a career spanning multiple genres, when you see his name attached you just know it will be a film that will cause discussion.

Showgirls is definitely a film that, in the 20 years since its release, has resulted in some fairly heated discussions!

The genre of the film is hard to define, but it's clearly a much deeper and thought provoking movie than what the contemporary critics would have us all believe. The sheer amount of female flesh on-screen, coupled with some hilarious dialogue and, most strikingly, Elizabeth Berkeley's incredibly 'all or nothing' performance, lead everyone to overlook what the actual moral of the film's story is.

It's clearly not something designed to be the height of intellectual film-making, but there is a scope to the narrative that the visuals are meant to override. To me, that's genius. Verhoeven subverting the audiences perceptions, making you leave the cinema wondering if the film is just a vacuous skinflick, or a moral tragedy that just happens to have a lot of exposed breasts on show, as well as the most hilarious sex scenes ever filmed!

To me, it's not a surprise the film has been reevaluated in more recent times, and has become a staple for film-making students to review and analyse.

In the grand scheme, it's not an amazing movie. But from the perspective of someone (everyone) trying to understand what Paul Verhoeven was trying to achieve and express....