Lemming (2005)

70% of critics liked it
(47 reviews)
53% of users liked it
(7,099 ratings)

The charmed life of a successful young engineer is thrown into chaos following a decidedly uncomfortable dinner with his powerful boss and the man's socially scabrous wife in With a Friend Like Harry director Dominik Moll's twisted, semi-supernatural thriller. Upon relocating to an ultra-modern… More The charmed life of a successful young engineer is thrown into chaos following a decidedly uncomfortable dinner with his powerful boss and the man's socially scabrous wife in With a Friend Like Harry director Dominik Moll's twisted, semi-supernatural thriller. Upon relocating to an ultra-modern community in the south of France with the promise of a lucrative position at powerful Richard Pollock's (André Dussollier) hi-tech firm, Alain Getty (Laurent Lucas) and his wife, Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsbourg), find their life together going better than they ever imagined. Happy in his work and deeply in love with his beautiful wife, Alain relishes his newfound success before a fateful dinner with Richard and his venomously eccentric wife, Alice (Charlotte Rampling), casts a dark thunderhead over Alain's azure skies. Unable to sleep after the troubling and abbreviated dinner and driven to repair the kitchen sink during a sleepless fit of late-night productivity, Alain is shocked to discover that a lemming has become lodged in the drainage pipes. As Alain attempts to discover just how a rodent native to Scandinavia found its way to a tiny drain pipe in France, a sudden revelation regarding the grim fate of Richard's troubled wife finds the once rational engineer struggling to maintain his sanity, and his marriage, against a malevolent and seemingly supernatural force. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr. 9 min.
Directed By: Dominik Moll
Written By: Giles Marchand, Dominik Moll
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: May 19, 2006 Limited
On DVD: Aug 15, 2006
Studio: Celluloid Dreams

Critic Reviews

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times
This spooky, quasi-sci-fi, psychological thriller is unclear about what's real and what's not -- and not in any interesting way.
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
It's a tale of normality invaded by pathology. But here, the danger seems less plausible, the conflict more contrived.
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe
Even by the strictest standards of odd French psychological drama, the behavior here is particularly opaque.
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle
More disturbing than thrilling, Lemming, like Alice, overstays its welcome, but does get around to a finishing kick.
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
The movie, which has the slightly glum perversity of early Chabrol, is a dream of betrayal.
Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
The theme is hidden desire, but the trip feels like a stale museum tour of the usual psychodrama tropes -- voyeurism, ghosts, sexual fantasy, dream imagery, murder -- without the goose-bumps-on-your-brain payoff.
Anton Bitel, Film4
The six featurettes range from two-and-a-half to 10 minutes in length, and cover everything from story development to acting to post-production effects.
Anton Bitel, Eye for Film
slick, funny and unsettling, slipping between psychological thriller, absurdist farce and ghost story into an unnerving dreamscape where psychosis meets metempsychosis.
Lewis Beale, Film Journal International
If Lemming doesn't necessarily work on an intellectual level, it sure does emotionally.
Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile
A cross between a psychological and supernatural thriller, the film is intriguing, baffling and often confusing
Joseph Proimakis, Movies for the Masses
full review in Greek
Marc Mohan, Oregonian
If you're content to let dream logic take over, a lot can be gleaned from this odd, darkly funny meditation on life, death, love and revenge.
Marta Barber, Miami Herald
Holds enough interest throughout to keep you entertained -- unless you're afraid of mice.
Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
... wears out its eerie mood with little to justify dragging it out for more than two hours.
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times
Dominik Moll's masterfully cast psychological thriller Lemming crackles with tension; its story keeps going off to unexpected places as we watch breathlessly, unable to look away.
Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews
...an intriguing head game from a talented director who needs to solidify his ideas with a bit more substance before he can become truly great. The cast clicks and collides in all its configurations

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

Drew S

Lemming is handsomely acted by 3/4ths of its principal cast and never dull by any means, but the sum of these parts sort of falls short. The movie could have ended at the 45-minute mark and I wouldn't have missed anything, save a hokey dash of the supernatural and an excruciating… More
Lemming is handsomely acted by 3/4ths of its principal cast and never dull by any means, but the sum of these parts sort of falls short. The movie could have ended at the 45-minute mark and I wouldn't have missed anything, save a hokey dash of the supernatural and an excruciating protraction of an already hamfisted metaphor. I turned the movie off not feeling too satisfied. Lemming is pervaded with characters making illogical choices in interaction. When someone in a film acts strangely, I enjoy trying to figure out why with the information a viewer has that the other person in the dialogue may not; it's an interesting dramatic technique that helps you get behind both the characters and their actions. Unfortunately, this happens all the time in Lemming but the motives are never really clear. It felt like the characters were being obtuse for the sake of keeping each other in the dark and manufacturing misunderstandings, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. Learn how to communicate like the normal people you supposedly are and maybe this shit won't happen to you! I really had a lot of trouble sympathizing with the characters because of this, but the strong portrayals sort of recoup lost ground here. Charlotte Gainsbourg is a great fit in her part - I always enjoy seeing her in movies because she's clement and effortless, much like her even-tempered Benedicte here. Laurent Lucas, who I definitely don't remember from Who Killed Bambi (not that I remember much about that movie), is also surprisingly effective. He radiates a sort of loyal intensity, a quality that makes you believe in his devotion to his wife even when the script isn't really. Charlotte Rampling's screen time is brief but she is an imposing specter, lingering through the movie. Seeing the effects that radiate from her presence is the most interesting part of a movie that usually just dead-ends itself. The only weak link here is Andre Dussollier, whose IMDB page suggests that he's one of those prolific character actors that just don't really give a shit. His one mode of expression here would corroborate this, but as he's the least important character in the movie, I guess things could be worse. I wasn't particularly expecting much from the movie, and that's just about what I got. I put it on my Netflix queue because I am quite fond of both of the Charlottes and wanted to see how they would fare in a thriller. The answer: they are disserviced by their material. Entertaining but sort of watery, Lemming's content probably doesn't justify its run time, unless you are really looking to kill two hours.
Shauna R

A gripping, underrated, French thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed Lemming, it never lost my attention. The story is twisted and surreal, at times a little too weird but makes it more engaging. The cast is wonderful. Charlotte Gainsbourg is a very talented actress and deserves more… More
A gripping, underrated, French thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed Lemming, it never lost my attention. The story is twisted and surreal, at times a little too weird but makes it more engaging. The cast is wonderful. Charlotte Gainsbourg is a very talented actress and deserves more recognition; all the other leads Charlotte Rampling, Laurent Lucas and André Dussollier are more than competent. Nice usage of the Mamas and Papas, 'Dream a little dream of me' at the end, added a great effect to the film. Lemming is an interesting, fresh and stylish film which definitely deserved more attention than it received.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]In "Lemming", Alain(Laurent Lucas) is an up-and-coming engineer developing a miniature flying webcam(I want one of those for Christmas) and lives in a suburban development with his loving wife, Benedicte(Charlotte Gainsbourg). His boss, Richard(Andre… More
[font=Century Gothic]In "Lemming", Alain(Laurent Lucas) is an up-and-coming engineer developing a miniature flying webcam(I want one of those for Christmas) and lives in a suburban development with his loving wife, Benedicte(Charlotte Gainsbourg). His boss, Richard(Andre Dussollier), invites himself over to their house for dinner but arrives late with his wife, Alice(Charlotte Rampling), who is argumentative throughout the meal before ending the evening by dousing her husband with wine. [/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]Puzzled by what has clogged his kitchen drain, Alain wakes up in the middle of the night and discovers a small rodent in the pipe. The creature is later revealed to be a lemming which is only found in northern Scandinavia...[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"Lemming" gets off to an intriguing start but lumbers along and lacks originality.(The lemming is not the only thing in the movie from Scandinavia...) The movie aims to be genuinely creepy but is uninspiring with its execution.[/font]
Daniel P

Exceptional, impossible to classify thriller/black comedy/supernatural film from the director of Harry, He's Here To Help; it's like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch and is one of the most bizarre and satisfying films I've seen in a… More
Exceptional, impossible to classify thriller/black comedy/supernatural film from the director of Harry, He's Here To Help; it's like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch and is one of the most bizarre and satisfying films I've seen in a long time. Alain (Laurent Lucas), a designer of home security products (he's working on a "flying webcam") seems to have it all - a beautiful wife, Benedicte (Charlotte Gainsburg), a promising new home in a pretty town and a lucrative job. On the evening his boss, Richard, and his wife, Alice (Charlotte Rampling) come round for dinner, things start to get... weird. The kitchen sink blocks, and later Alice accuses Richard of sleeping with prostitutes and throws her wine at him, before trying to insult Benedicte over her 'model' marriage and what she sees as a superiority complex. That night, unable to sleep, Alain successfully unblocks the sink when he discovers a rodent (the titular lemming) in the s bend. What follows gets increasingly unnerving and surreal as Alice tries to seduce Alain before inviting herself back into his house, creeping out Benedicte and sleeping in the spare room. Sounds odd? Well, yes it is, but there is a point to the film and although there is some ambiguity it's not Inland Empire either. There are some unexpectedly very funny moments in the film, the atmosphere is expertly built practically from the beginning, Charlotte Rampling gives a frankly terrifying performance and the sound editing and music score is terrific. I'm already in anticipation for Dominik Moll's next film.
Lovable M

Really bad movie and didn't make sense.
Stefan P

I simply can't understand why this movie is so underrated and unpopular. Lemming are in many ways similar to David Lynch's masterpieces - slowpaced, mysterious and incredible suspenseful. The story will be recognized by Lynch-fans as well, starting off with truly happy… More
I simply can't understand why this movie is so underrated and unpopular. Lemming are in many ways similar to David Lynch's masterpieces - slowpaced, mysterious and incredible suspenseful. The story will be recognized by Lynch-fans as well, starting off with truly happy characters that later experience big psychological problems. There is also a feeling for details which makes the movie beautiful. Amazing performances from, among others, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Charlotte Rampling. I will definately look up Dominik Moll's earlier works and I truly hope he gets a chance to create more.
Emily B

Brilliant film, especially Charlotte Rampling and Charlotte Gainsbourg.