JUST like Jack Bauer at the start of a new series of the heart-stopping show 24, you know that Charlotte, played by Maxine Peake, is not going to have a good day.

At the start of the film she has it all, a high-powered job in the city, a glamorous apartment and a top of the range car, but at the same time, emotionally, she has very little.

A scene in her office block shows the difficulty she has in dealing with her emotions and other people.

When a colleague comes in to show off her newborn baby she flinches and buckles, escaping from the situation at the earliest opportunity.

Charlotte’s whole world explodes at the news that she has been passed over for promotion in favour of a junior colleague — and has also been forced out of the company.

As the saying goes, it never rains but it pours.

She then takes her emotions out on an unwitting victim, which changes her life forever.

And without giving too much away, even as Charlotte descends into a web of lies and deceit, you still root for her, such is the power of Maxine’s acting.

The reaction to the twists and turns of this tense thriller literally took the audience’s breath away at Thursday’s premiere, so be ready to be surprised in this thrilling, pulsating journey into the mind of a woman living on the edge.

Andrew Bardsley