Paper Mask

Plot

Matthew Harris is a young, lowly orderly working in a busy hospital in London who dreams of bigger and better job opportunities for himself. One evening, he witnesses a car accident outside a local pub where the driver of a car is killed after colliding head-on with a lorry. Harris learns that the man, named Simon Hennessey, was a doctor at the hospital where he works and had been applying for a residency at another hospital in Bristol. Harris takes the dead man's mail, fills out a job application, and applies for the job himself under the late doctor's idenitity. After studying medical books and getting "hands on" involvement with other patients at his hospital, Harris applies for the job and is accepted. He quits his orderly job and settles in Bristol where he, as Dr. Simon Hennessey, is assigned to a busy Accident & Emergency (A&E) department.

Despite his lack of experience, Harris completes his first few days without incident. He meets and is soon aided by a friendly A&E nurse, named Christine Taylor, who becomes smitten with the friendly "doctor" and who helps him through his busy first days. After saving the life of a woman in A&E, Harris becomes more competent and confident with his new job, but he also becomes more and more arrogant and corrupt by his newly acquired power and skill. Soon, both Christine and Harris begin an affair which complicates things. When a patient under Harris' care dies from his negligence, he is brought up on charges. But at his hearing, Christine takes the blame for the incident which gets her suspended from the hospital.

Things take another turn when one day, Alec Moran, one of the few friends that Harris had during his days while working as an orderly in London, runs into him, and Harris goes to desperate measures to protect his charade. When Harris takes Moran to a remote area and confides in him about his scam of impersonating a doctor, Moran takes it very badly and threatens to report Harris to the hospital authorities. Harris follows Moran and pushes him off a cliff, thus resorting to murder to keep his job. However, Moran survives the fall critically injured, but long enough to be brought into the hospital for treatment. Harris tries again to kill Moran in A&E, and succeeds by injecting a blood bag for Moran's emergency surgery with poison.

When Christine finally figures out Harris' charade after seeing the real Dr. Simon Hennessey's gravestone in London while visiting her recently deceased father's grave in the same cemetery, she confronts him. Harris charms Christine into helping him so they can get married and live a good life together. Since neither he or Moran have any family, Harris manipulates Christine by making her claim that Alec Moran is the real Matthew Harris, so he can be legally declared dead and he can continue his impersonation of Dr. Hennessey. Christine does so, and Harris is again free and clear.

Due to growing negative views of him, Harris decides to transfer to another hospital in nearby Salisbury, and he leaves without saying goodbye to Christine. As the now-amoral and murderous Harris settles into his new job at another A&E at another hospital to continue his impersonation of a professional doctor, the abandoned Christine must decide for herself if she will remain silent forever, or risk prosecution and imprisonment for her involvement in Harris' charade by reporting him to the authorities.

Cast

Release

The film was screened at the 1990 Directors' Fortnight (Quinzaine des Réalizateurs) at Cannes Film Festival.