A middle-aged widow with low self-esteem, Maggie (Marianne Faithfull) is not the kind of woman you'd normally find in the sex clubs of London's seedy Soho district. But life is unpredictable, and since Maggie's adorable grandson has a potentially fatal condition, she will do whatever's necessary to raise £6,000 for a promising treatment the boy's parents just can't afford. Which is how Maggie finds herself in a dingy little room at Sexy World, masturbating clients through a peephole (under the stage name "Irina Palm"), without ever seeing her customers' faces. As both her earnings and sense of self-worth rise, Maggie must continue to keep her work secret from her moralist son Tom (Kevin Bishop) and judgmental neighbor Jane (Jenny Agutter), among others. But Maggie's motivations are pure, and her initially disapproving daughter-in-law Sarah (Siobhan Hewlett) is eventually the first to appreciate Maggie's unconventional largesse. Faithfull effectively combines infinitely subtle facial expressions with the smoky, still-sexy voice that made her famous as Mick Jagger's favorite '60s pop songbird, and director Sam Garbarski brings an unlikely combination of working-class sentiment and low-key romanticism to the proceedings, which are more about admiring Maggie's tenacity than judging her sordid environment—a narrative choice that allows unexpected humor to emerge from the dreariness of Sexy World. And when Maggie develops the sex-worker's equivalent of tennis elbow, or decorates her "office" with flowers and family photos, our affection for this self-described "frump" only deepens. Recommended. (J. Shannon)
Irina Palm
Strand, 103 min., R, DVD: $27.99, Aug. 12 Volume 23, Issue 5
Irina Palm
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