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Irina Palm
Metascore
55 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 17
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 17
  3. Negative: 1 out of 17
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  1. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    88
    Faithfull is marvelous: Once notorious for her own escapades, this great-great-niece of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is no shrinking violet, but she's perfect as a plump, frumpy widow with a huge heart and a hidden talent no one would ever suspect.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Sid Smith
    75
    It turns out a success, tempering its farfetched scenario with enough restraint and believability to pass for a modest parable of modern manners.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    Sam Garbarski's use of slow-motion shots is pretentious, and he paces the film too slowly. But he captures the seedy side of London, giving you a feel for Soho during the day when sunshine exposes a cheap gaudiness.
  4. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    75
    Garbarski recovers from the melodrama with a final image that is so sweet, so simple and so understated that one is tempted to say it is perfect.
  5. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    70
    Marianne Faithfull is unforgettable as a middle-class, middle-aged frump …in Sam Garbarski's crowd-pleasing comedy-drama Irina Palm.
  6. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    70
    Genially preposterous and pleasantly diverting, it balances calculation against humanity and generally comes out on top.
  7. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    63
    Hoary, rather than whore-y, Irina Palm is shameless only in its mawkish sincerity.
  8. Empire
    Reviewed by: Kat Brown
    60
    There's a heartwarming quality that softens the hardcore setting but this does lack an assured, er, hand.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    60
    Irina Palm is, for the most part, a phony trifle, but at its heart, somehow, is a real and fascinating person.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    50
    The demand for her services is so great that she suffers from "penis elbow," but her popularity also brings self-esteem and a possible boyfriend in her boss (Miki Manojlovic) in this lethargically directed comedy.
  11. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Janice Page
    50
    Doesn't deliver on a lot of fronts. But then again it gives us full-on Faithfull, who manages to bare herself completely without ever actually getting undressed.
  12. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    50
    Plays like a throwback to gritty-but-softhearted English dramas of the 1980s like "Mona Lisa" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid."
  13. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Marc Mohan
    50
    Mixed messages are the order of the day in the conflicted British drama Irina Palm. At first blush, it seems like another entry in the saucy-but-safe Brit genre, a la "Calendar Girls," "Saving Grace" or "The Full Monty," but it turns out to be both more ambitious and less successful than those diversions.
  14. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    50
    It is, however, a baby boomer's treat to see Faithfull, romancer of Mick Jagger back in the day and a pop siren in her own right, show her qualities as an actor. One is hopeful she'll find her way to other, better projects.
  15. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    50
    The dopey premise only takes to a gross extreme the "Full Monty" formula that the Brits have been milking for more than a decade.
  16. Variety
    Reviewed by: Leslie Felperin
    40
    Astonishingly, pic reaped hearty guffaws at Berlinale press show, suggesting this might play best in Europe, but Anglophone auds are more likely to give Palm the thumbs down.
  17. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jim Ridley
    30
    Nobody can reduce tawdry material to doddering quaintness like the British, but this staggeringly inane joint effort of U.K., Belgian, French, German, and Luxembourgian film financing represents a true coalition of the witless.
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