The conversation continues as Annette wrestles her flesh free of its spandex prison, pillbox still on head. She’s left standing in her bra, thong, and sheer support pantyhose. The camera shoots Ms. Curtis here from multiple angles, each shot exposing a real, 65-year-old woman’s body, rounded tummy, slight sag, and all.
Yet the scene is not remarkable because Ms. Curtis lets us see her in her underwear. It’s remarkable because of Annette’s (and Ms. Curtis’s) utter comfort in her own skin. Annette never stops chatting with Shelly, and never makes a move to conceal or cover herself.
Also remarkable is the director’s refusal to objectify Annette’s body. It’s simply an organic part of the moment. And this, in turn, encourages viewers to take it similarly in stride: It’s just two women talking, and one is half-naked — as happens every day in gyms and dressing rooms.
Annette may be a former showgirl taking off her clothes, but this was not a striptease. What gets unveiled in the locker 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 a second, poignant scene in which to reimagine — and undo — classic showgirl motifs. This time, a possibly drunk Annette, wearing her leg-and-bosom-revealing uniform, climbs atop a casino table and, unbidden, launches into a solo dance to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the ’80s ballad of desperate longing. We can’t tell whether the music is actually playing or if it exists only inside Annette’s head, but it’s immaterial. The dance is a wholly internal experience for her.
Annette dances with more heart than mastery. She writhes and swivels, clenches and releases her fists, arches her back, runs her hands over her body, closes her eyes in concentration. And although she’s on a tabletop, a makeshift stage, it’s clear she is dancing for herself alone, enjoying her own sensuality, inhabiting her body from within.
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