As he puts on his flannel shirt and poses for his own inspection Rocky Dennis looks like the typical American teenager--a kid, perhaps, out of Peter Bogdanovich's own Last Picture Show. But when he turns around, he looks like no one else in the world. It seems that he's wearing a bizarre mask, but Rocky Dennis's face itself is disfigured by a congenital disease. Mask, based on real characters, tells the story of this extraordinary boy who emerged victorious over the potentially crippling circumstances of his life. Set in a lower-class, fringe milieu of bikers and bungalows in Southern California, the film stars Cher as Rocky's mother Rusty, a tough “biker lady” whose outward strength is only the tip of the iceberg. Together with her male friends--all bikers--she provides her son with dignity, and something approaching a family. “The real world doesn't usually pay attention to people like Rocky and Rusty,” Bogdanovich has said. “To the outside they're just a troubled woman and an ugly kid.... This story is an extreme example of the conflict between outer appearances and inner reality....”