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.
