Irina Palm

Belguim / Luxembourg / UK / Germany / France, 2007. Directed by Sam Garbarski. Marianne Faithfull, Miki Manojlovic, Kevin Bishop, Siobhan Hewlett, Dorka Gryllus, Jenny Agutter.

Apparently this film has been judged to be so awful its title has been used for a Critics’ Award – the “Irina Palm d’Or” – for a bad film contest. I feel that’s a little unfair – I’ve seen worse films, although I can’t honestly say it’s very good. Marianne Faithfull stars as Maggie, a woman with a seriously ill young grandson whose parents desperately need money to pay for a possibly life-saving trip to Australia where he can receive specialist medical attention. After an unsuccessful attempt to secure a loan and having been told she’s unemployable, Maggie answers a poster ad for a hostess in a sleazy bar not realising initially what the job entails. The owner (Manojlovic) likes the look and feel of her hands and takes her on a week’s trial. The job is to sit in a “glory-hole” booth and give hand relief on demand to the punters who queue to put money in the adjoining meter. She becomes an unlikely success, the money starts to pile up, but with success comes complications, especially when her family and staid, middle-class female friends discover what she’s up to. The reasons for the critics’ scorn are fairly clear. 1. The storyline isn’t plausible. 2. The film is very slow moving – it plods relentlessly and has a soundtrack to match. 3. The writers have no ear for dialogue, which comes across stilted and false and at times very irritating, especially when Maggie inexplicably doesn’t answer the person who’s talking to her (which happens on a number of occasions). 4. Faithfull’s acting, either through misdirection or incompetence, is wooden. Having said all that, there were a few bits I enjoyed, notably Maggie’s confrontation with her turncoat friends (a trio led by Jenny Agutter). It’s an interesting oddity, but that’s about it. Maggie herself sums it up: “He’s dying, I’m wanking, it’s a mess.”