Bill Maitland [Nicol Williamson] is a 39-year-old Englishman who runs a small London law firm and is tormented by his own inadequacies—as a lawyer, as an employer, as a husband, as a father, as a friend, and as a lover. Although women are drawn to him, he cannot sustain any meaningful relationship. The film embraces his inner world through interior monologues and imagined scenes, painting a portrait of a man who feels increasingly hollow as those around him come to realize they cannot rely on him. His life is a tense unraveling, and the viewer watches peeling layers of confidence give way to a growing sense of dread and isolation.
Shirley [Eileen Atkins] is introduced as his secretary and lover, a close ally who walks out of the job and out of his life, signaling the first fracture in his carefully maintained facade. Soon after, Hudson [Peter Sallis], his faithful chief clerk, drops a bombshell of his own by revealing that he plans to join a rival firm, leaving Maitland with only Jones, the trainee [David Valla] who openly scorns him. The office atmosphere darkens as a client, Mrs Gamsey [Isabel Dean], departs tearfully and looks unlikely to return, underscoring Maitland’s faltering grip on the very people who should trust him.
A dinner party becomes a crucible in which Maitland’s volatile temper erupts. He drinks too much and insults the friends of his wife Anna Maitland [Eleanor Fazan], a blow that leads to a bitter confrontation at home. The evening ends with Anna striking him, and he withdraws from the marital bed, seeking solace elsewhere. Liz Eaves [Jill Bennett], his mistress, briefly offers a refuge, yet she too becomes another casualty of his cruelty, as Maitland insults and then leaves her to sleep in the office, further isolating himself.
The film intensifies as a string of encounters reveals Maitland’s professional fragility and personal delusions. A client and former lover, Mrs Anderson [Clare Kelly], brings a court hearing that morning, and Maitland’s defense is feeble enough to foreshadow a likely loss. A new client, Mr Maples [John Normington], is distressed by the impression he senses Maitland gives and walks out in tears, convinced that the lawyer cannot handle his painful case with sincerity. Maitland’s daughter Jane Maitland [Ingrid Boulting] drops by at his request, only to leave after a tirade of insults, a moment that crystallizes the distance between father and child. The receptionist Joy [Gillian Hills], with whom Maitland has begun an affair, appears, but she coldly rejects him and leaves, reinforcing the pattern of rejection that haunts him. Liz reappears, seeking reconciliation, but Maitland’s brutal dismissal drives her away again.
Haunted throughout by fears of malpractice, arrest, trial, death, and cremation, Maitland is left utterly alone. The world around him continues with its bustle as if nothing has changed, yet he feels himself slipping irretrievably into a void. In a final, devastating moment, he smashes a window and gazes down at the crowded street, a stark image of a man confronting the consequences of a life built on instability and self-delusion. The film leaves viewers with a pared-down, unflinching meditation on the costs of emotional fragility and the human need for connection, even as it slips away.
