Expectations are raised high, but not satisfyingly met, in this initially intriguing and certainly atmospheric Scandi thriller that ranges from Sweden to Poland and Exmoor in England; it teases hints of Gone Girl and Patricia Highsmith. Screenwriter-producer Michèle Marshall has adapted 2014 novel The Living and the Dead in Winsford by veteran Swedish crime writer Håkan Nesser, and Caroline Ingvarsson makes her feature directing debut.

The scene is the stylish home of a Swedish power couple. Maria (Mirja Turestedt) is the presenter of an popular TV talkshow, and she is married to the older Magnus (Thomas W Gabrielsson), a star academic with a drinking problem and a seedy reputation for infidelity. Maria is a former student of Magnus and has, in fact, surpassed him intellectually, now faintly despising herself for her middlebrow job as well as for editing and almost secretly co-writing papers for Magnus, who grumpily relies on her help. But Maria despises herself still more for standing by Magnus despite a rape charge against him. With an ugly, boorish defiance, Magnus intends to brazen it out legally and claim consent; in her heart, Maria does not believe him.

Things come to a crisis when the couple are driving through Poland after visiting an old friend of his, quarrelling constantly. They stop to look at an abandoned military bunker and things take a terrible turn. A series of flashbacks and a final, tense conversation with a police inspector are to disclose most (but, bafflingly, not quite all) of what is supposed to have happened. The audience are perhaps entitled to ask what precisely went on in the bunker, given that a final moment-by-moment revelation does seem to be implicitly promised; there are odd plot points that have been telescoped and garbled, possibly lost in the edit. Disappointing overall, but a strong performance from Turestedt.

• Unmoored is in UK and Irish cinemas from 15 August