There is a really boring recent trend in world cinema to make movies about rich people learning valuable lessons. From Triangle of Sadness onwards there has been too many movies about affluent people being all surprised that someone’s money is not the most important thing about them. The trouble is that these movies just don’t work. Who cares? Most people already know having extra money shouldn’t give you extra rights. Why are we pandering to the idiots that don’t? Unfortunately Bunker is just another one of these. It takes a plot based on gentrification in London, the way money controls the physical space we inhabit, and whether Stephen Graham is the scariest man alive and boils it down into something so stupid that it’s not even bad. It’s just boring, which is the last thing any story ought to be.
World-class architect Miguel Moreno (Javier Bardem) is married to literary publisher Sofia (Penélope Cruz, who is having an exceptional year) and they live in London with their daughters Lucia and Rosa (played by real-life sisters Chloe Conh and Leah Conh). They moved from Madrid from Miguel’s career at the price of Sofia’s; she runs the translation department of her publisher which was a backwards move from her literary career in Spain. But Miguel’s career is so excellent they live in a London house that’s been expanded into a modernist delight. We never see the front façade but the back is all windows, overlooking a large walled garden where the cat, Blue, roams freely. But as we begin a hole has been knocked into that wall by new neighbour Toby (Mr. Graham), who has inherited the house and therefore doing his home improvements himself. Miguel takes the realisation his whole home is no longer private as an act of aggression – with some justification, it’s fair to say – and makes his displeasure with Toby very clear. It also means Miguel decides to start ramping up their home security.
At work Miguel is taking the lead on designing a hospital in Germany for much less than his usual fee, but coming under significant pressure from his business partner Simon (Mark Gatiss) to take a major commission to build a doomsday bunker for a billionaire. It’s not an easy request: the commission would involve at least five years and a move across the world, and Miguel is not delighted by either the personal or professional implications of that choice. At her own work Sofia is distracted both by a potential promotion but also by an American author, Jeremy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), whose work has a surprising personal resonance for her. At home Lucia is causing anxiety by her absolute refusal to detach herself from her phone, while Rosa is driving everybody crazy at how upset she is that Blue has gone missing. What could happen?
Writer-director Florian Zeller, who is French, evidently didn’t bother to learn anything about the British attitudes to some of the misbehaviour that subsequently takes place. There are codes in every society, and the Morenos being Spanish doesn’t account for the fact that the British characters in this movie don’t behave in very British ways. Not even the woman at the party (Eileen Atkins in the most powerful under-a-minute cameo for years), who compliments Sofia’s beauty while wearing an incredible dress herself, behaves like an ordinary Londoner. Even Londoners as comfortable as the Morenos and their circle. More to the point, Mr. Zeller doesn’t make nearly enough use of the contrast between the private refuge of a bunker and the social good of a hospital as Miguel strides around trying to control his own little kingdom. Miguel is certainly not a billionaire, but he’s at the stage of his career where he doesn’t need to work for money, and it’s odd indeed that he even considers the idea of designing the bunker because it would only be for the money. And it’s not just that he is designing a hospital to help people. Building a building that people can actually see feels like good business.
Mr. Bardem and Ms. Cruz are their normal excellent selves and Mr. Graham plays very steadfastly to type. The billionaire himself does make a single appearance, played by a perfectly cast actor it would be a shame to spoil, but it must be said that he doesn’t add nearly as much zing to proceedings as Ms. Atkins. But despite all this talent, thanks to Mr. Zeller’s poor ideas the final third of the movie is so bad that it smashes all their good work on the rocks. The lessons learned there are of the afterschool-special type, and all so badly done it’s a surprise actors of this calibre agreed to participate. Cinematographer Ben Smithard, who has worked with Mr. Zeller before, brings a whiff of contempt to proceedings that’s especially appreciated when things fall apart. It means the drama doesn’t need to be taken seriously. And seriously, that ending is so atrocious it’s much of a piece with all the other movies trying to teach rich people their money doesn’t make them special. Why does this nonsense keep getting made?
Bunker recently played at the Venice Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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