Irina Palm

Irina Palm

77% Liked It
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Irina Palm

Ann Queensberry, Corey Burke, Dorka Gryllus, Jenny Agutter, Jonathan Coyne

A 50-year-old widow is so desperately in need of money that she unwittingly accepts a job in a sex club.

Id: 10887764

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Recent Reviews


  • June 18, 2008
    Rarely have I enjoyed a film this much when I also found so much wrong with it. The biggest reasons for liking Irina Palm are Marianne Faithful and Miki Manojlovic. They are terrific, both humble and genuine in their roles of hand-jobbist and sex-club owner, respectively. I hesit...( read more)ate to call them prostitute and pimp because that would grossly overstate their actual vocations. It's gross overstatements that slightly mar this otherwise delightful film about a woman who, apparently, stoops to a pretty low standard in her efforts to save the life of her gravely ill grandson.

    I write "apparently" because I couldn't help but conclude from this film that giving hand-jobs for a living is not all that bad. Maggie (M. Faithful) receives the moral high ground in her confrontations with both her friends and her son when the truth of her vocation is revealed. Her son makes a fool of himself, vastly over-acting and over-reacting when he discovers his mother working in a sex club. He sees her dressed in a typical day dress walking through the club. All the other women are half naked, but her son concludes that she is working as a whore. He calls her a whore, screams it at her without a single question. As the audience, we see this display of ridiculous emotion as misplaced. Maggie's daughter-in-law, who up to this point didn't seem to care if her son lived or died, rises to the defense of her mother-in-law. Maggie entered this degrading lifestyle to save her grandson. That's what is important.

    Maggie finds strength and a new, authentic life in refusing to accompany her son and grandson to Australia, and instead returns to the sex club and kisses (and presumably falls in love with) the sex club owner, who, in response to Maggie's declaration that she likes his smile, affirming their budding closeness, says "I like the way you work." Gracious me.

    Dorka Gryllus is also wonderful as the young veteran of glory hole work. But after developing her character, and her relationship with Maggie, she is abruptly tossed aside. The two of them had become friends, but Louisa (D. Gryllus) is unrealistically fired because, apparently, Maggie has taken away all her clients. On her way out, Louisa curses Maggie who has no idea why. When Maggie later approaches Louisa at her home in a run down housing project (isn't that where you'd expect a glory hole worker to live?) to attempt reconciliation perhaps, Louisa opens up a can of class-consciously aware worms in response, but then is shut out, turned off, and eliminated from the rest of the film entirely.

    The script to Irina Palm (palm, hand-job, get it?) has to have some tongue planted firmly in cheek. For those who are curious, there are no penises shown in the film, only arm movements and careful camera angles that suggest the size of the unseen units must average one to two feet in length. The rise of this mild-mannered, fifty-year-old grandma who can't even say the f-word, from nobody to the "best right hand in London", with men in long queues to receive her services is absurd. It's just not that kind of skill. It's a very small segment of a larger talent pool.

    Maggie wears her right arm in a sling for most of the film, suffering from "penis elbow", which is akin to tennis elbow only from a different vocation. Enjoy the film. Don't sweat the details of this simple and touching story, just soak in the wonderful performances amidst the (inexplicably chosen) mildly raunchy milieu.
  • January 16, 2008
    Golden Bear nominee at last year's Berlin Film Festival. The story of a middle-aged, lower/middle class housewife and widow who accepts a high-paying job in a sex shop (under the alias of Irina Palm) in order to earn money for her dying grandchild's operation. One of those incred...( read more)ibly enjoyable, quirky and off-beat Brit flicks that you come across every now and again. A fantastic performance by Marianne Faithfull.
  • November 7, 2009
    Moving and entertaining, but oversimplified film carried entirely by a fantastic cast. Marianne Faithfull is an absolute must-see, her performance is nothing short of sublime. Unfortunately the rest of the film is not able to match her stunning portrayal of "Irina Palm".
  • June 14, 2009
    Started off a bit slow, but ended up being alright.
  • November 7, 2009
    La Faithfull gente, la Faithfull.
  • October 26, 2009
    Una peli sencilla que ni es pretensiosa ni grandiosa, es como un capítulo de mujer casos de la vida real pero subido de tono.
  • September 26, 2009
    strange job to earn money.
  • September 22, 2009
    It was alright but we all know money does'nt grow on trees but have to work for it. Showed some and not convincing situations where workin somewhere dirty for despration family care. Aside from Health benefits views least wasn't very explict. Slow told though.
  • August 21, 2009
    Deep, emotional, yet funny and easy to watch. The kind of movie that drags you into it. Very original story and touching.
  • July 31, 2009
    I would have preferred to see Jenny Agutter's character expend the effort, and Marianne Faithful's character hold the bucket...but unfortunately, there was no bucket, though she did go though a lot of Kleenex. Anyway, it was humorous to see Marianne portray disdain for something...( read more) that surely came so intuitively to her in real life behind the music :) Did anyone keep what was left of that Heath Bar to sell on Ebay or did David and Mick consume it from both ends to meet in the middle?

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