Writer-director Florian Zeller’s BUNKER is a handsomely-made, beautifully-cast, social drama fatally undone by an obvious and ham-fisted script. Zeller’s social observations are so obvious and banal and told in a style that is so on the nose as to be patronising.
Real-life husband and wife Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz play husband and wife Miguel and Sophia. They live in London and are the embodiment of complacent success - stunning house, beautiful kids, fashionable friends. But all is not well under the surface. Sophia resents the fact that while Miguel’s career as an architect has thrived in London, hers as an editor has been constrained.
The action begins when their poor neighbour Tony (Adolescence’s Stephen Graham) punches a hole through the dividing wall between his garage and their garden. He wants to put in a window so that he can make the space liveable but in doing so violates their privacy. Miguel threatens legal action and of course Tony cannot afford to go to court. All of this is embedded in a wider discussion of security alarms. Miguel wants to protect his property and that may or may not include his wife.
The acquisitive possessiveness of the striving couple is thrown into relief by a new commission. A tech billionaire wants Miguel to build him a bunker in Hawaii. Sophia hates the idea but as the commission’s fees go up and up Miguel is clearly tempted. Cue a zoom meeting between Miguel and the billionaire. He’s played by Paul Dano in a chilling cameo, all the more chilling because Dano has such a babyish face and underplays the role. When asked by Miguel why he would want to build a bunker he’s genuinely flummoxed why anyone who had the means would not. And when he drops a line about maintaining the chain of command in a situation where money had lost all value you could hear the audience audibly gasp. It says a lot that in a couple of weeks where we’ve seen films skewering Zuckerberg, Musk and Altman that it was Zeller who managed to say something that finally shocked an audience already predisposed to thinking that all billionaire techbros are evil.
So this ends up being a three-star film. You know from the opening scene that you’re gonna get a slow build over 90 minutes to a big blow-out argument between the couple and some kind of violent confrontation with the neighbour. And you can definitely guess the composition of the final shot. But the Paul Dano scene and the production design make the film worth watching nonetheless.
BUNKER has a running time of 2hrs 6m. It played Venice and Toronto 2026.
