It is unusual to describe a film about a sex worker as heartwarming and sentimental, but that is the weird dilemma presented by “Irina Palm,” a how-did-they-think-of-that movie set in Britain.
This is one unlikely sex worker. Meet Maggie (Marianne Faithfull), a frumpy middle-aged widow whose young grandson is dying of a mysterious disease. Neither she nor the boy’s parents (Kevin Bishop, Siobhan Hewlett) have the money for his specialized treatment.
So Maggie walks into an establishment advertising for a hostess job, little suspecting the place is an X-rated club where certain acts might be performed for the sexual satisfaction of the male clientele.
Maggie gets hired as, uh, a “hostess.” The money is too surreally good for her to pass up, and her job (conveniently enough for the audience “yuck” factor) does not require her to actually see the customers.
So the film is in a line from the likes of “The Full Monty” (grown men as strippers) and “Calendar Girls” (English ladies topless), but with rather higher stakes.
Throw in a growing relationship between Maggie and the club’s worldly owner (Miki Manojlovic, the Walter Matthau of European films), and the credibility factor sinks to an even lower point.
I guess German-born director Sam Garbarski wants us to take “Irina Palm” as a fairy tale, a bad-taste fable. It sort of works, given the dowdy, working-class feel and the overall melancholy mood. Only problem is, you can’t believe that the characters would actually behave the way they behave.
The whole thing is made watchable, even compelling, because of Marianne Faithfull. The onetime ’60s nymph, Rolling Stones companion and “As Tears Go By” songbird is now a stout, sad-faced woman. She’s not exactly a professional actress, but she carries an authenticity about her that makes you want to keep watching her. Without her, this movie would be a very different, and possibly ridiculous, experience.
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