The Serpent

Fashion snapper Vincent (Attal) lives one of those existences - futuristic ranch-style bungalow, centrefold wife, designer kids - that invites envy in many less fortunate.

However, the sweetness and light is taking on a bitter and darker hue. His wife is leaving him and a huge custody battle is looming when she announces she's moving to Munich.

What Vincent doesn't realise is that he's also being targeted by opportunist thug Plender (Cornillac), a one-time classmate who harbours a particularly nasty grudge.

Plender's stock-in-trade is targeting weak and wealthy married men, sending in a seductive Russian hooker and photographing the results.

When he learns that Vincent's father-in-law is the multi-millionaire boss of a cosmetics company he goes into full extortion mode.

However, there's a complication when the Russkie honey-pot falls to her death from a gantry in Vincent's studio and Plender is forced to take a different tack.

Director Eric Barbier's thriller is an ambitious affair, full of writhing storylines, switchback narrative and a terrifically vile villain in the former of Clovis Cornillac.

A malevolent mummy's boy, he's the daddy when it comes to the ruthless pursuit of money, particularly when it's revealed his history with Vincent contains a dark secret.

A fair suspension of disbelief is required and things could have been tightened up… but its an exemplary dark chronicle of vengeance and guilt.

Tim Evans