Johanna can't find any friends. Not in the lecture hall, in the cafeteria or in the student club. That's why she creates a lie: she has cancer. Had she known what she was doing, she would rather have remained invisible forever.
Ben (Thomas Schaurer) has an argument with his girlfriend Sina. She falls into a coma, seriously injured. Ben is sent to a psychiatric clinic for attempted manslaughter. Doctor Karin Kramer (Juliana Gibbins), who has just been dumped by her partner and is therefore in a personal crisis herself, is given the task of preparing an expert opinion on the suicidal and aggressive Ben for the public prosecutor Sundmann. In ongoing conversations, Dr. Kramer tries to find out who Ben is and what happened during the argument between him and Sina. Is Ben dangerous or does he need to be protected? Nothing is as it seems...
1991, farewell in Budapest. Mária remembers the past in tears. Her husband, Tibor, a chemist and a target of the KGB, left their apartment one evening to fetch some cigarettes only to be found drowned in the shallow Lake Balaton the following day. Their son, Peter, a student in Western-Europe, was found dead on the Danube embankment.
Matthieu Carriere, who once starred in German director Volkor Schlondorff's breakthrough film Young Torless, turns director himself for Fool's Mate. Michael Marwitz plays a once-famous concert pianist and chess whiz. He compromises his talents by casting his lot with a group of self-destructive druggies and gamblers. Marwitz' new circle of friends effectively ruins his marriage to Victoria Tennant, an English architect. Fool's Mate makes no effort to cheer up its audience, but this sort of fare apparently is what the European film-festival circuit thrives on.
