Franco-German writer-director Dominik Moll follows up his 2000 film, Harry He's Here To Help, with this similar tale of urban misadventure.

Alain has a nearly perfect existence designing clever web cams and living with his content wife, Benedicte. When Alain invites his boss to dinner, a catastrophic chain of events is put into action which leads to his boss's wife suicide in his home and a complete change in Benedicte. When Benedicte leaves him for his boss, Alain realises that strange forces are at work which can only be ended by taking the most drastic measures.

People often bang on about Carol Reed's The Third Man being Orson Welles's greatest acting role, but as Welles himself pointed out he isn't in the film for the first hour and everyone talks about him making him mysterious.

Lemmings kinda does this in reverse with the iconic Charlotte Rampling. Her tight, desperate presence towers over the film from the moment she appears, causes havoc and continues even after her death. The ghostly twist of the film depends on this being the case and Rampling's performance is perfect in this respect. Her intensity and her sexiness despite her bile and age, she is 60 now, is truly scary and render Alain to a mere boy rather than the control freak he is. Rampling has never had the credit for her acting ability because of her great beauty and status as an it girl in her youth but here she mesmerises and overshadows even the fine Dussollier.

In the end, though, despite fine cinematography, great acting and a strong atmosphere the script is overfull and too long. The early tremendous sense of atmosphere dissipates as too many sub-plots are followed, and only when Rampling reappears does the film regain its momentum. The switching of tone is not as good as it could be as well with a lack of preparation for the twist moment which makes it a shock but loses its ability to unnerve the viewer. The very end of the film backs up this overwritten tendency when narration is present to explain where the Lemming came from. Still this is rather enjoyable and Rampling is terrific.