Bunker

A glossy-looking blend of marriage-crisis drama and psychological thriller, Bunker has a strong selling point in the buzzy screen chemistry between real-life couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, who play a husband and wife here. French playwright turned film-maker Florian Zeller, who scored major Oscar-winning success with The Father (2020), then fell flat with The Son (2022), wrote this project specifically for the Spanish superstars.

Bunker is Zeller’s first original screenplay not based on one of his stage plays, though it borrows major plot elements from the Argentinean comedy drama The Man Next Door/ El hombre de al Lado (2010), directed by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat. The author also cites Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) as inspiration, another marital meltdown thriller starring another real off-screen couple, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Despite a classy headline cast, which also includes Stephen Graham (Adolescence), Zeller’s third feature is arguably less than the sum of its parts, sometimes crossing the line between finely tuned tension and soapy melodrama. But Bunker is still a handsome and gripping watch overall, with ambitions to make some deeper sociopolitical points. It world premieres in Venice this week with Deauville, Toronto and London festival slots to follow soon afterwards. Sony Pictures Classics, which handled Zeller’s previous two films, have already signed North American rights. Pathé will distribute in France and other European markets. Netflix also feature in the credits, suggesting a possible future release on the streamer.

Bardem plays Miguel, an internationally renowned, prize-winning Spanish architect now based in London, where he shares an elegantly refurbished townhouse with his publishing executive wife Sofia (Cruz) and their two young daughters. On the surface, the family enjoy an idyllic life, full of wealth and luxury, swanky restaurants and arty bohemian friends. But beneath the glitzy surface, the couple’s marriage is under pressure from diverging values, growing doubts and hidden tensions,

One bone of contention is Miguel’s escalating paranoia about home security following a confrontation with next-door neighbour Toby (Graham), a working-class Londoner who resents the spiralling house prices and gentrification which has transformed his native city beyond all recognition. Without permission, Toby has begun knocking a hole in their shared garden wall to help bring sunlight into his modest property. When Miguel threatens legal action, the conflict becomes a slow-burn psychological battle with class-war undercurrents.

But a more serious source of conflict is Miguel’s latest work offer, a hugely lucrative contract to design an underground doomsday bunker complex in Hawaii for a social media billionaire (Paul Dano) who fears some kind of imminent catastrophe, from climate disaster to political revolution. Clearly inspired by Meta CEO’s Mark Zuckerberg’s vast high-security Hawaiian compound, the bunker will be a “Pharaonic project”, as Miguel’s business partner Simon (Mark Gatiss) says approvingly. But Sofia is appalled at the prospect of her husband selling out his talent and principles to such a selfish, pessimistic, ultra-wealthy client. While Miguel is sorely tempted by a big payday, he knows the price may be the end of his marriage.

This central moral dilemma is spiced with related subplots including Sofia’s thwarted career ambitions, teasing hints of infidelity, and the ominous disappearance of the family’s cat. There is also a dramatic outburst of violence late in the story which amplifies the growing sense that Miguel’s family have constructed their own kind of bunker to protect them from harsh, scary reality. Zeller built his reputation on plot twists, and he keeps viewers on their toes here with some smart misdirection and deftly handled reversals.

At its worst, Bunker is solidly middlebrow entertainment that strains a little too hard for depth. Shooting mainly in stylishly underlit interiors, with Madrid standing in for London in most scenes, Zeller’s directorial eye is steady but formally conventional, and inevitably a little stagey. Many of the secondary characters are blank cyphers, especially Patrick Schwarzenegger’s supporting role as a hot-shot New York novelist whose glib Fortune Cookie insights – essentially, life is short so try to enjoy it – are presented as profound philosophical nuggets. Likewise Zeller’s own preachy conclusions about loving thy neighbour, the value of human connection, and the kindness of strangers. Solid advice, maybe, but also trite.

All the same, there is still much to enjoy in Bunker, chiefly in the intimate, emotionally charged two-hander scenes between Cruz and Bardem. A fiery extended argument over the shaky future of their on-screen marriage, performed entirely in Spanish, could work as a great stand-alone drama. It is a rare pleasure to see Bardem working with more nuanced material rather than his typical hot-blooded machismo. Of course, whatever flaws a film may have, watching one of cinema’s most absurdly attractive real-life couples share a screen together is never a chore. Cruz, as ever, remains an eerily ageless perma-pouting glamour bomb. Her hair alone deserves some kind of design award here.

Director, screenwriter: Florian Zeller
Cast: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, Patrick Schwarzenegger
Cinematography: Ben Smithard
Editing: Yorgos Lamprinos
Production designer: Alain Bainée
Music: Volker Bertelmann
Producers: Florian Zeller, Federica Sainte-Rose, Simon de Santiago, Fernando Bovaira
Production: Blue Morning Pictures (US), Mod Producciones (Spain), Pathé Films (France), Mediawan (France), Entourage Pictures (France)
World sales: Filmnation Entertainment, New York
Venue: Venice Film Festival (competition)
In English, Spanish
126 minutes