Couple in a Hole review: brilliantly does exactly what it says on the tin

Director Tom Geens sure likes to keep us guessing. How exactly did Scottish couple John (Higgins) and Karen (Dickie) end up living in a hollow in deep in the Midi-Pyrenees? Why does he count aloud while she eats a worm? Why does she remain inside their makeshift cave while he forages for food and water?

What are the small presents she fashions and that he throws over a cliff, as if they were some kind of religious offering? Just how long have they been here, anyway? Long enough for both parties to look scrawny and get excited by a dinner of grubs, it would seem.

The aptly titled Couple in a Hole initially looks like a low-key survivalist drama – replete with bug-eating and rabbit-traps – the perfect date movie for Bear Grylls devotees. But the universe of the film tilts when Karen is bitten by a poisonous spider and John, accordingly, is forced to venture into the nearest village and to accept the assistance of local do-gooder, Andre (Jerome Kircher).

The introduction of this new character and his sour, unsympathetic wife (Corinne Masiero), hastens John and Karen’s folie à deux towards implosion and simultaneously harks back to the personal tragedy that brought them to live within the depression – and that is the correct word – of the title.

Cinematographer Sam Care carefully counterpoints a very stark existence with verdant vistas. Even a weird curveball coda can’t undo the good work done by the filmmaker and a very fine quartet of thespians. A genuine oddity: do seek it out.