‘Bunker’ Review: Florian Zeller Makes Yet Another Horrendous Melodrama [TIFF 2026]
Despite impassioned performances by Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, Florian Zeller has proven incapable of making thought-provoking films after the disastrously misguided ‘The Son’, and his flop streak continues with ‘Bunker’.
After ‘The Son’ revealed French playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller as a potentially worthless talent, all eyes turned to his third feature film, Bunker. Not based on any prior work Zeller has written, the movie seemed like the perfect opportunity for him to not only bounce back but also showcase exactly what kind of director he is. While it isn't as infuriatingly misguided as The Son, Bunker proves how incapable he is of making genuinely thought-provoking feature films, beating you over the head with a sledgehammer for almost two hours by repeating the same idea through different variations of the same sequence.
If you didn’t get that the relationship between the married couple Sofia (Penélope Cruz) and Miguel Moreno (Javier Bardem) is fractured, the movie’s opening shot shows a wall being demolished, its fractures highlighted. The neighbor, Toby (Stephen Graham), wants to build a window overlooking the Morenos’ lawn for his new studio, which sets the film’s events in motion. Their marriage is already on a tightrope, but it may be even more strained, as Miguel believes Toby's proposal is completely unacceptable and wants to take legal action.
But more pressing matters loom: Miguel’s architectural firm may have a big project coming their way, as a rich billionaire (Paul Dano) wants him to build a bunker for unspecified reasons. Well, the reasons probably have to do with a world in decay, but Zeller never defines anything on screen. He simply repeats the inextricable fact that Miguel and Sofia’s marriage is fractured and at its end, without us ever actually feeling it. Unlike The Father, a masterpiece that daringly puts us in the headspace of an ailing father losing his sense of space and time without necessarily telling us, Zeller’s subsequent projects have lost their visual and thematic potency.
Bunker’s screenplay lacks emotional depth, and his images are completely meaningless. While Ben Smithard knows how to compose a shot, and the movie has alluring frames, the story carries little weight when it doesn’t know where to go. It starts in one direction and culminates in a confrontation so laughably inert that you wonder why you were watching this film in the first place. The idea of a fractured relationship explored by a real-life couple who still madly love one another seems primed for genuinely thoughtful acting (and theatricality). Unfortunately, both Cruz and Bardem are given nothing intriguing to work with, even though they primarily speak Spanish for most of the movie and only speak English when they interact with the American or British actors.
To be honest, though, Cruz and Bardem are both excellent. You can tell the two have a sense of play together, and not just because they’re married. Their interactions (and individual performances) feel authentic, and no director, no matter how talented, could fully shape them. Bardem, in particular, has far more to do than Cruz, but both continually hold their own amidst a screenplay that seems more misguided than enlightening. At the very least, they try to develop their relationship on screen while the supporting cast is pitifully wasted. Dano’s role is essentially a “five-dollars-and-a-dream” Zoom cameo, while Graham and Patrick Schwarzenegger’s secondary portrayals have little texture beyond hints of deeper narrative arcs that go nowhere.
Graham gets a “redemption arc” of sorts near the film’s laughable climax, but that moment isn’t built up at all, so it reads more like a deus ex machina than something with genuine function. All of this happens while composer Volker Bertelmann reheats the same score he's been treading on since his Oscar-nominated ‘Conclave’, with the same string patterns that don’t carry much weight in a film desperately searching for meaning. When Bunker ended, the only thing that was ruminating in my mind was how my precious time was wasted, and that Florian Zeller’s filmmaking career is going nowhere.
How do you fumble an Oscar win for a genuine masterpiece and then proceed to make one of the most embarrassing films of the decade? What happened? And what is he trying to say with Bunker? It doesn’t matter. The only thing he needs to do right now is take a much longer break than the years that passed between The Son and Bunker, because I’m afraid this filmmaking thing isn't cut out for him. The Father is a miracle, and a movie I will cherish for the rest of my life. If that’s the only good contribution Zeller made in the world of movies, then there’s nothing better for him to end his filmmaking career on. Go out on a high instead of doing whatever the hell you’re doing.