Marie begins an affair, even while she denies her husband's death, though she receives a call from the Landes police, saying a body had been found in a fisherman's net.

The body, however, has spent so much time under water that it is putrefied and cannot be easily identified; a genetic test shows 90% correspondence with his mother, and the dental records seem to match as well.

The website's consensus reads: "Rampling carries the film with her finely nuanced performance of a woman coping with her husband's death.

[4] The Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman admired Sous le sable, claimed that he watched the film several times.

[5] The film was listed as The New York Times's Critic's Pick by A. O. Scott, who said that "Ozon gives the movie to Ms. Rampling, whose performance is like a perfectly executed piano étude".

[7] He then went on saying that "Under the Sand reps a hard commercial sell but could unearth solid niche business with critical support and devoted distrib[ution]s".