Everyone wants to feel safe and comfortable in their own home, and it’s a natural and logical desire. But assuring that security at the expense of someone else’s brings with it a moral question of fairness and equality to which the answer is never a positive one. For his latest film, Florian Zeller focuses on a family unit and the way in which one of its members contemplates fortifying someone else’s protective bubble while he’s simultaneously chipping away at that of his own neighbor.
Miguel (Javier Bardem) is a renowned architect who lives in a lavish London home with his wife Sofia (Penélope Cruz) and his two young daughters. He’s intrigued by an offer from a mystery billionaire to design him a bunker that could enable him an escape from inevitable class wars he believes are soon coming. Sofia doesn’t approve of this job, but she’s also not happy that he’s become obsessed with their neighbor Toby (Stephen Graham), who knocked out a huge hole in his wall to build a window that would look directly into Miguel and Sofia’s home, a reality for which Miguel is not prepared to stand.
Zeller is best known as a playwright and transitioned to film with The Father, which dealt heavily with space and memory as both become unreliable for a man suffering from dementia. His follow-up, The Son, tackled more family dynamics but in a less resounding and effective way. His third film features a real-life married couple in the lead roles, playing a version of husband and wife who have trouble spending time together and certainly wouldn’t be well-suited to also work together professionally. Sofia’s less successful career is just one issue they have, since her work in book publishing doesn’t afford her nearly as many opportunities as it would back home in Madrid because not being British (or a native English speaker, despite her apparent mastery of the language) means other colleagues are often given preference for assignments.
Bardem, who is also at TIFF this year with The Beloved, manages to make Miguel into an almost impossibly self-centered protagonist who should manage to evoke little sympathy from the audience by its end. He has plenty to say and barely listens, and his arrogance is most evident when he speaks with Toby, who calmly explains that he’s turning his garage into a studio and needs some light to work. Miguel has already made up his mind about how it affects him and isn’t willing to hear anything, especially Toby’s frustration about how the neighborhood he grew up in has changed so much to the point that neighbors no longer look out for each other.
The film’s title references the job prospect Miguel gets which will bring in untold fortunes and ensure that he and his partner (Mark Gatiss) will have funding to do whatever they’d like after that. But it – and the conversation a reluctant Miguel has with its sponsor – reveals a great deal about the human instinct for self-preservation, regardless of how that affects others. When Miguel asks if he would let those without resources into the bunker, his response is to answer a different question, which is how he’ll find a way to remain in charge when money is no longer a currency that can keep him in power.
Zeller explores intriguing ideas here but the script at times feels a bit too preachy and deliberate, ensuring that its characters spell out the conclusions he’s trying to make rather than demonstrating them through their unspoken interactions. Bardem is a decent fit for this part, but Cruz delivers the standout performance, giving Sofia considerable substance despite her character not being nearly as prominent as her husband’s. Bunker is unsettling food for thought and, likely as intended, may hit too close to home for some audiences and make them uncomfortable about their own levels of comfort and privilege.
Movie Rating: 6/10
Bunker makes its North American premiere in the Gala Presentations section at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released theatrically at the end of 2026 by Sony Pictures Classics.
