“Bunker” is the third film made by playwright-turned-filmmaker Florian Zeller and stars a real-life married couple, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. The movie is scheduled for the fall festival circuit and tells the story of a married couple that has grown apart.
When the Oscar-winning film director made plans for the movie, he had Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” in mind. That movie features a then-married couple, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, whose marriage was failing. Zeller planned to exploit the permeability between fiction and reality by featuring Cruz and Bardem, a couple for almost two decades, as an onscreen husband and wife
“I loved ‘Eyes Wide Shut,’ this ambivalent proposition presented to the audience where you’re not quite sure what you’re being invited to watch,” Zeller says. With Cruz and Bardem, Zeller wanted to use “what they are to touch on something more authentic and more unsettling for the audience.”
Real-Life Married Couple Javier Bardem & Penelope Cruz in ‘Bunker’
Getty“Is it fiction? Is it another version of fiction? Where is the line between reality and fiction?” Zeller told Variety, adding that he wanted to use Bardem and Cruz as “what they are, in the noblest sense of the term, to touch on something more authentic and more unsettling for the audience.”
The film director was “daydreaming about the idea of seeing them together on screen,” rather than casting two characters he wondered who to cast. “That permeability between reality and fiction seemed to me a truly fascinating project,” he added.
“Bunker” represents Zeller’s first solo screenplay, written for Cruz and Bardem, and a film that feels personal. Meanwhile, it also broadens the film director’s work beyond the intimate family dramas in his first two movies, “The Father” and “The Son.”
Cruz & Bardem’s Roles In The Movie
GettyCruz has been enjoying an unusually busy year, while starring in Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” and a cameo in “La Bola Negra,” a Cannes prize-winning film acquired by Netflix in May. In “Bunker” she plays a wife experiencing increasing disillusionment in her marriage.
Bardem plays the role of Miguel, a celebrated architect drawn by a morally dubious but lucrative commission to build a secret survivalist bunker for a reclusive tech billionaire, Andrew (Paul Dano). This leads Miguel’s wife, Sofia (Cruz) to question his values and the very foundation of their 17-year marriage.
“Bunker” was also inspired by the 2009 film “The Man Next Door” and quickly grew beyond the central couple. The movie retains the psychological intensity that is Zeller’s signature, but is also more political than his previous work, relating to how socioeconomic anxieties shape relationships and family dynamics.
“It takes a look at the contemporary world and explores all these modern fears — about rampant individualism, fear of the future and environmental issues, the intensification of social injustice, and so on,” the director said. “But rather than simply being a commentary on the world, it’s an experience seen through the eyes of a couple.”
‘Bunker’ Inspired by Mark Zuckerberg’s Survival Bunker In Hawaii
GettyAccording to Zeller, one of the inspirations for the movie came from an article he read about Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg building an underground survival bunker for 30 people in Hawaii.
“I was fascinated by this story. This man had made his fortune connecting people with one another, yet at the same time was preparing a plan B to completely cut himself off from the rest of humanity,” Zeller said.
He added that this became a metaphor for the latest era, saying,“It addressed a political issue – namely, the folly of extreme wealth, which consists in believing that it can protect us from everything, that we can buy time, health and security.”
As for the filming location, Zeller chose Madrid, where Bardem and Cruz actually live with their children. “I wanted to build a house that would allow me to work on the viewer’s perception,” he says. “At first, you think it’s a very open house with lots of glass. But the further you get into the story, the more it begins to resemble a bunker.”
When Does ‘Bunker’ Premiere?
Florian Zeller’s psychological thriller film “Bunker” is set to premiere on September 8, 2026, in the main competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
