'Irina Palm'

Rating:

GENE SEYMOUR | Newsday Staff Writer

March 21, 2008

Marianne Faithfull is so composed and convincing at playing a frumpy grandmother that you have to keep reminding yourself that she was, long ago, the bad-girl muse of the Rolling Stones and other blues-rock outlaws.

Yet, here she is, carrying this rickety enterprise as Maggie, who's so desperate to raise enough money to send her ailing grandson to Australia for a lifesaving procedure that she takes a job masturbating men at a sex club in London's Soho district.

Faithfull lets her character's inner sensuality slowly leak out as prudence gives way to self-confidence. Her control makes you all too aware of how comparatively little control director Sam Garbarski has over the overall tone and narrative elements. It could have been a delicately witty comedy of manners.

IRINA PALM (unrated). 1:43 (sexual material). At the Quad Cinemas, Manhattan.