Florian Zeller is best known for The Father, a ground-breaking exploration of dementia starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. His follow up The Son featured Hugh Jackman but fell short of that debut and felt overly earnest in its exploration of mental illness. Bunker is a different proposition featuring Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Stephen Graham in a story that circles issues of ambition, marriage, and status.
It relies heavily on the chemistry between this real-life husband and wife, adding a tangible layer of intrigue to every exchange. Zeller injects his film with a cool and clinical vibe, that is equal parts architectural chic, and affluent indifference. Bunker also moves at a glacial pace relying on crucial character interactions to imbue drama into different dynamics.
Mark Gatiss and Stephen Graham also bring a different flavour that offers relief to audiences in search of something beyond that central relationship. Graham especially brings various shades to the unruly next door neighbour cliche, going toe to toe with both Bardem and Cruz at pivotal points implying threat through sheer physicality.
Image Courtesy of LFF
Some might consider Bunker a touch heavy-handed in Zeller’s exploration of AI oversight and billionaire building projects, but there is no denying the relevance of his film. As the world continues to change and the disparity between economic classes widens at an exponential rate, choices will have to be made. To some degree that disparity is reflected in the power shift between Miguel and Sofia as their relationship threatens to splinter, moving Bunker dangerously close to cliche, before changing tac.
This is because Bunker taps into the universal theme of family when any real crisis threatens to undermine it. The combined chemistry of both Bardem and Cruz also carries the drier parts of this movie along, when lesser movie stars might have dropped the ball. The AI elements and extended cameo from Paul Dano might be a distraction, but this real-life husband and wife remain Bunker’s beating heart.
It shines a light on things that should matter, moving beyond ambition, pride, and class status to embrace something more fundamental. There is a line from Rocky which states ‘you either get busy living, or you get busy dying’. Bunker acknowledges the former through family and tips a hat to the possibility of an alternative, before asking audiences to make a choice.
Whether these ideas really deliver on the philosophical elements that underpin Florian Zeller’s film is up for debate, but it succeeds more than The Son ever did. The downside is that it fails to scale the heights of everything he achieved with The Father. Leaving his audience with hints of a hamstrung family melodrama, saddled with contemporary issues where they might not belong.
Bunker is due for release in the UK on December 4.