The Night Doctor

Mikaël is a night doctor. He goes out on house calls at night in the hard districts of Paris: the old, children with fevers, addicts. He is tired, sleepless and his life is a mess, caught between his wife and his lover. He also has a cousin who is a pharmacist. The cousin has drawn him into a false prescription arrangement, a traffic running on Subutex written for addicts, and Mikaël wants out. The film takes place over one night. Elie Wajeman writes and directs. Vincent Macaigne plays Mikaël, with Pio Marmaï in the cast. The screenplay has a real source: Wajeman attended two trials of doctors accused of taking part in Subutex trafficking and drew the film out of those hearings. Wajeman had directed episodes of the series Le Bureau des Légendes in the same period, and the construction of tension here carries the trace of that work. It looks like a crime film but its real subject is the profession: a doctor deciding alone, at midnight, on a doorstep, whom to refuse. Vincent Macaigne plays the part without any heroism; the character is permanently late and permanently tired. It was in the Cannes selection of 2020. Who it is for: viewers who like French realist thrillers and narratives set over a single night. Who it is not for: the pace is low, there is no resolution, and the character's passivity will tire some viewers.