Jack of All Trades

At what point did middle-aged British women being saucy and naughty turn into a viable film sub-genre? After Calendar Girls (naked women!) and Keeping Mum (a sweet old sociopath!) comes Irina Palm—Marianne Faithfull as a sex worker!

Big banged and clad in somber colors, Faithfull plays doting grandmother Maggie, forced to find some sort of job without having any skills or prior experience so she can help pay for a new treatment for her dying grandson. She wanders into Sexy World after noticing a “Hostess Wanted” sign, and is given a chance by club owner Miki (Miki Manojlovic, resembling a well-aged Antonio Banderas) after he finds her hands suitably soft. But Maggie won’t be playing at being a bawdy Mae West type, welcoming businessmen and horn dogs to the establishment with raucous banter. Instead, she’ll be expected to spend her days in a gray, windowless room, wanking the cocks poked at her through a hole in a wall. And to no one’s surprise, Maggie—or Irina Palm, as she calls herself—becomes a SoHo sensation, and a queue lines up for her services every day.

There’s little new in terms of the plot’s bold strokes (Maggie and Miki are attracted to each other, Maggie’s friends are hypocrites, Maggie’s son discovers where the money is coming from and screams at her). But the details and minutiae keep Irina Palm fresher than it would have been otherwise—along with Faithfull’s low-key performance, turning her rasp from jaded to shy.

A strange subplot about one of Miki’s competitors is introduced and then almost immediately dropped; and Maggie’s son Tom (Kevin Bishop) comes across as a little more shrill than he should. But it’s a joy watching Faithfull find the reality and adjust Maggie’s comfort level every time she puts on a fresh smock, settles down in her chair and lubes up her hands in preparation for the first customer of the day. Also amusing is her legitimate physical ailment, what her co-worker Luisa refers to as “penis elbow.”

“Tennis players get tennis elbow,” she says. “We get penis elbow.” Let’s just hope Irina Palm’s satisfied customers understood the cost of their pleasure.