MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Mask’: Mock Medicine Man

“Paper Mask” (at selected theaters) is a handsome-looking, chillingly mordant character study that deftly evolves into a suspense drama. Adapted by John Collee, a onetime physician, from his own novel and directed and produced by Christopher Morahan, it delves into questions of identity and morality while providing a very clear-eyed view of the workaday world of a British hospital emergency ward.

Paul McGann, best known to American audiences as the apprehensive “I” in the zany comedy “Withnail and I,” stars as a young man stuck in a bleak job as a porter in a seedy London hospital. When one of the hospital’s physicians, a man about his age, is killed in a car accident, he can’t resist assuming his identity--especially since the dead man was about to be interviewed for a job in a Bristol hospital. So desperate is he to escape his dreary life he doesn’t worry about his awesome lack of qualifications and manages to land the position during a hasty meeting.

Right away, the filmmakers have set up a highly unsettling situation--who’d want to be attended by a fake doctor, especially in an emergency room? By luck and pluck McGann’s phony Dr. Simon Hennessey manages to survive without doing any patient serious damage long enough to be taken in tow by a kindly, dedicated nurse (Amanda Donohoe) who not only shows him the ropes but also falls in love with him.

Irony compounds irony: On the one hand “Dr. Hennessey” discovers he is basically no more inept than his colleagues fresh from years of highly technical training in medical school but with little hands-on experience; on the other, he’s more popular with nurses and technicians than his peers because of his well-warranted humility.

But how long can the charade last--and how long can Hennessey play his role without becoming corrupted by it?

In bringing their taut, brisk film to its climax Morahan and Collee demonstrate considerable ingenuity and a willingness to risk credibility (and even to lean on coincidence) to pull off a finish that’s quite satisfying, perhaps all the more for its chanciness. Essential to their success is Donohoe’s ability to make us believe in the nurse’s genuine goodness, giving way to an excess of self-criticism that serves only to blind her to the true character of a man she loves.

Although McGann is splendid in portraying this poseur’s relentless moral deterioration, changing gradually from a man sympathetic in his desperation for a decent life to a cold-blooded monster, it is really the conviction Donohoe brings to the nurse that makes “Paper Mask” (rated R for some sensuality and language) as persuasive and absorbing as it is.

‘Paper Mask’

Paul McGann: Matthew Harris

Amanda Donohoe: Christine Taylor

Tom Wilkinson: Dr. Thorn

A Castle Hill Productions presentation. Director-producer Christopher Morahan. Screenplay John Collee, based on his novel “A Paper Mask.” Cinematographer Nat Crosby. Editor Peter Coulson. Costumes Amy Roberts. Music Richard Harvey. Production design Caroline Hanania. Art director Andrew Rothschild. Sound Tony Jackson. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (some sensuality, language).