DESPERATE PEOPLE DO DESPERATE THINGS: IRINA PALM.<br /><br />Marianne Faithful plays Maggie, a middle-aged English widow whose young grandson is dying. His only hope is medical treatment in Melbourne but the family doesn't have the money to pay for the airfare. Unable to get a bank loan and not taken seriously by a job recruitment company, Maggie takes work at a sex parlour, stimulating men with her hands. Her soft touch and firm technique make her a surprise success and punters have to get in line to be serviced by "Irina Palm".<br /><br />IRINA PALM asks an important question: How far would you go to help someone you love? But the film completely fails to explore this question satisfactorily.<br /><br />The premise is flawed. Maggie makes little effort for a personal loan, visiting only one bank. With the abundance of credit card companies willing to hand out money to anyone these days, I'm surprised this isn't an option. And I would much prefer to have seen her look harder for a decent job. Granted, it's not easy being an older, unskilled worker but Maggie simply doesn't try.<br /><br />While I'm not familiar with her line of work, I find it very hard to believe she could make anywhere near the amount of money she does at the sex parlour, especially with the glory hole being coin-operated. The premise is a construct.<br /><br />IRINA PALM also has problems with genre. Is it a drama or a comedy? It certainly centres on a serious subject, a boy's life is at stake. But with its cavalier attitude towards sex, you can't help wondering if it's meant to be funny. If so, watching an unhappy, uncomfortable woman perform sickening sexual acts is the most base form of humour.<br /><br />There are some moments that are amusing: Maggie's attempt to personalise her workspace, her silencing of a noisy couple making love in car outside her house and the playful manner in which she tells her disapproving friends about her new job. But the film is slow-paced and its constant fade-to-blacks make it feel very disjointed. <br /><br />Maggie's intentions are noble but we don't feel for her, not even when her son becomes aggressive after learning of her new job. "I'm not a whore!" she insists. I can imagine Woody Allen's response to this: "No, only by the dictionary definition."<br /><br />With its contrived premise, confusion of genre and slowness of pace, IRINA PALM is a poorly handled, mess of a film. No pun intended.