A Patch of Fog

A famous author, Sandy Duffy (Conleth Hill), wrote his well-known and only novel, "A Patch of Fog" nearly 25 years ago. Present day, Sandy is a university lecturer and talk-show personality with co-host Lucy (Lara Pulver), who is also Sandy's girlfriend. Still riding the success of his only publication, Sandy has developed a shoplifting addiction and gets caught by a security guard, Robert Green (Stephen Graham).

Robert detains Sandy, shows him the CCTV footage, and threatens to call the police. Robert copies the footage onto a cd-r and writes Sandy Duffy on it. Sandy offers to pay for the stolen item and suggests that Robert keep the change and buy himself "a few pints." Robert responds that he does not drink. Sandy begs and pleads with Robert to let him off. Robert calls the police station, but then doesn't tell them he caught Sandy. Sandy thanks Robert, offering to make it up to him, and Robert responds, "I'm off in 30 minutes."

At a bar around the corner, Sandy buys Robert a Coca-Cola. They force an awkward conversation. As Sandy gets ready to leave, Robert reminds him that he still has the copy of the shoplifting footage. They agree to meet again at the weekend for another drink and to exchange the video disk.

After lecturing at university, Sandy tells his colleague Troy (Arsher Ali) about Robert, calling him a "sad little man." Robert walks into the classroom, having apparently eavesdropped on the conversation. Troy gets a weird feeling and leaves. Sandy asks Robert to talk a walk with him. Robert leads Sandy to some railroad tracks and places two coins on the tracks. A train comes and runs over the coins, flattening them. Robert gives Sandy one and keeps the other for himself as a symbol of their new friendship.

Sandy tells his publisher about Robert, admitting that he was caught shoplifting and how he feels blackmailed. The publisher, a long-time friend, tells Sandy to be stern with Robert and threaten to tell the police about the blackmail. Sandy meets Robert at the pub and they get into an argument. Sandy threatens to tell the police, and Robert threatens him back; they walk to the police station together. As they are approaching the service window, Robert informs Sandy that he is going to tell the police about "all the other" shoplifting incidents. Sandy questions Robert, revealing that Robert has been "hoarding" videos of the other times Sandy shoplifted from the store. Sandy apologizes to Robert and they leave the police station.

Feeling disheartened, Sandy attempts a new strategy. He invites Robert to his house and gives him a tour. During the tour, Sandy shows Robert his office. Robert looks around curiously, noting the absence of a copy of Sandy's famous novel. Sandy explains that he doesn't have a copy, but has the original manuscript around the house somewhere and will dig it up later. Sandy gets Robert high, offering him a marijuana cigarette, and pretends to connect with Robert. Robert asks Sandy why he steals, and Sandy tells Robert that after it happens, his heart beats faster, his hands sweat, and he becomes short of breath. Robert says that it sounds like an awful feeling, but Sandy responds that it is "the best feeling in the world." Sandy asks Robert to give him the disks, but Robert refuses.

At a loss, Sandy takes more extreme measures. He invites Robert to attend a lecture at university. When Robert arrives, the lecturer informs him that Sandy called in sick. Concerned, Robert leaves the lecture and heads back to his flat to feed his pet snake. Meanwhile, Sandy drives to Robert's apartment, jumps the back fence, and breaks in through a back window. Sandy destroys the apartment looking for the disks, finally realizing that they are in the pet snake's cage. He gets the disks and ransacks the flat, spray painting "fuck the police" on Robert's wall, and then throws the disks into a river.

Feeling relieved, Sandy resumes his life teaching university classes and speaking on the talk show. Things are going well with Lucy, and Lucy introduces Sandy to her daughter (Tara Cush) for the first time. Just when everything is looking better, Sandy gets a video message from Robert depicting security footage from Robert's flat, which clearly shows Sandy's crime. Sandy has a panic attack; he leaves the talk-show in the middle of a live broadcast to go outside and vomit. Sandy then drives to Robert's flat, begging for forgiveness. Sandy sees Robert through the letter box, but Robert won't respond. Sandy says he will wait in the car, but a police officer (Karen Hassan) arrives and says there have been reports of a suspicious car loitering in the neighborhood. Sandy drops a note into Robert's mail slot, apparently telling Robert to meet him at the railroad tracks.

Robert shows up at the tracks, visibly distraught over Sandy's behavior because he genuinely thought that Sandy was his friend. He explains to Sandy that he has always had difficulty making friends. Robert cries, and asks Sandy to "tell them . . . I didn't want to be alone," before stepping onto the railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train. At the last second, Sandy tackles Robert and saves him from attempted suicide.

Empathetic, Sandy offers to help fix up Robert's flat, and paints over the graffiti. On Robert's next shift at the store, he recognizes Lucy from Sandy's talk show. He introduces himself to Lucy and her daughter, Phoebe. Phoebe drops something and Robert picks it up; he is enraged to discover that it is the flattened coin he gave to Sandy on their first date. Later that evening, Lucy and Phoebe are making pizzas with Sandy at his home. Sandy sees Robert watching them creepily through a window, and then hears someone smashing his car windows. He goes to check, and knows it was Robert, but doesn't tell Lucy.

The next day, Sandy meets Robert at a furniture store to replace the furniture he ruined when vandalizing Robert's flat. Later, Sandy stops at a gas station to get a lighter. He pays for a newspaper and steals a lighter, but when he gets outside he doesn't feel the same rush he used to feel. At the studio, Lucy shows Sandy a video reenactment of a scene from "A Patch of Fog" of a little boy lost in fog. Sandy gets distracted when Robert calls, asking Sandy to go to his flat to meet the furniture delivery driver. Lucy asks Sandy what is going on and Sandy tells Lucy she is imagining things. Lucy tells Sandy that's what her ex-husband used to say.

Sandy meets the furniture delivery at Robert's flat. When Robert gets home, Sandy is waiting for him. The living room is empty except for the couch. Sandy explains that he had the delivery men remove all of Robert's furniture and that he ordered an entire new living room set. Robert seems pleased. Sandy invites him to attend his university lecture that same evening. At the lecture, Sandy assigns the class a new project. He shows the class the video recording of him vandalizing Robert's flat, telling the class it is performance art. He instructs the students to write about what is happening in the video, and tells them that he emailed the video for reference. Robert realizes what happened. After the lecture, Sandy tells Robert that he always despised him and is happy to have Robert out of his life.

Later that night, Sandy and Lucy broadcast an exclusive interview about "A Patch of Fog" and Robert watches it on television. During the interview, Sandy explains that the plot of the novel is based on his childhood. One night, when he was six years old, a thick fog came into his town. He went out of his house and got lost in the fog for four hours or so. His father, who had agorophobia, never came out of the house to look for him. At the end of the interview, Lucy asks Sandy how he felt when he wrote the book's dedication, which says "For my father, George, farewell my lovely." Sandy responds that it was "the best feeling in the world." After the interview Sandy tells Lucy everything about Robert, his shoplifting, and the burglary.

Robert is tipped off by Sandy's repetitive use of words and goes quickly to Sandy's house to break in. He disarms the security alarm and begins searching the house. Eventually his finds Sandy's original handwritten manuscript of "A Patch of Fog," which Sandy told him about previously. The front of the manuscript reads "For my son, Sandy, farewell my lovely." Robert then understands that Sandy's father wrote the book and that Sandy has been a fraud his whole life.

Sandy gets home and realizes the alarm is off, suspecting that Robert is there. He goes to the office and finds the manuscript missing. As he walks back to the kitchen, he sees Robert sitting down. Sandy demands that Robert return the manuscript, and Robert tells him he buried it. Robert tells Sandy he knows the truth about the novel. Sandy breaks down and tells Robert that he hates his father and felt like all his father gave him was the novel, which he found after his father's death. Robert tells Sandy he is going to move into the house and cook and clean for Sandy while Sandy writes his own novel. The thought of living with Robert sends Sandy into a rage and a scuffle ensues. Sandy gets Robert in a headlock but slips and falls, breaking his neck and accidentally killing him.

Sandy loads Robert's body into his boot, and drives to a lake. He drags the body to a boat and sets off from shore. A thick fog moves in over the lake. Sandy ties Robert's body to the boat's anchor. Just as he is about to cut the remaining slack he gets a phone call from Lucy, but doesn't answer. Sandy dumps Robert's body over the edge of the boat, but as it sinks he realizes that he never cut the slack. The remaining slack wraps around Sandy's ankle and pulls him overboard. Sandy struggles to swim to the surface but cannot. He gets dragged down with Robert, sinking, and drowns.

• Stephen Graham as Robert Green
• Conleth Hill as Sandy Duffy
• Lara Pulver as Lucy Walsh
• Ian McElhinney as Freddie Clarke
• Arsher Ali as Troy Griffin
• Stuart Graham as Tom Breslin

• A Patch of Fog on IMDb
• A Patch of Fog at Rotten Tomatoes