“A gorgeous-looking film that works best when it manages to hide its machinations.”

Don’t you hate it when the subtext bleeds into the text? If you do, better not see Bunker then, French writer/director Florian Zeller’s follow-up to the misfire The Son. A film in which the ideas are made literal through countless metaphors, Bunker is no doubt intricately directed, and performed with gusto by real-life couple Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, but rather obvious in what it wants to say when it ventures deeper than the main story about a marriage’s rough patch. Quite enjoyable until an unnecessary ending that would be more fitting for something like Panic Room (the film it shares a clear plot device with; it’s in the title), Bunker is a step back in the right direction for Zeller, although it doesn’t quite reach the heights of The Father.

Miguel (Bardem) is a successful architect living in London with his wife Sofía (Cruz), an editor at a publishing house, and their two daughters. One morning he hears some loud banging, and upon inspection finds to his horror a man knocking a hole in the wall that separates their garden from the adjacent plot. The man is only the contractor, he says, and he suggests taking it up with Toby, the proprietor of the garage on the other side of the wall. When Miguel finally gets hold of Toby (Stephen Graham), the latter explains that he wants to turn the small space into his home, but to make it livable he will need daylight, and therefore a window in the wall between his place and Miguel’s backyard.

Miguel, quite obviously, doesn’t agree, and manages to convince Toby to close the hole again. Relieved that he seems to have quelled this minor dispute, Miguel can now focus on a peculiar request from a tech billionaire (later revealed to be Paul Dano, who perfectly captures the mix of boyish charisma and social awkwardness of people like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg). Miguel is requested to design a self-sustaining, end-of-time bunker, capable of accommodating a couple dozen people holed up for at least a year. Sofía, with more moral sense than her husband, is strongly opposed to the idea of her husband creating a perfect safe space for a man whose wealth is built upon breaking down social cohesion. Miguel promises to turn down the offer, but takes a Zoom call with the mysterious billionaire anyway, another breach of trust with his wife. She is unhappy in London, and longs for Madrid and the fulfilling job she had there; she dutifully followed Miguel to London so he could further his career, but she feels she got the short end of the stick. When a young American writer (Patrick Schwarzenegger) crosses the pond to promote a book, his youthful idealism and optimism make her doubt her choices.

The marital issues of Miguel and Sofía form the core of Bunker, and this starts in the opening scene, where Miguel is asked to tell the story of how they met seventeen years ago. While he recounts the tale of their first dinner and his cat allergies, Sofía’s face reveals that she doesn’t enjoy the story as much as the other people at the table (Cruz’s acting in this scene is a masterclass in minimalism, and an early sign that it’s not all sunshine in this relationship). Everything that happens around them, and mostly to Miguel, forms hooks for Zeller to hang his thematic ideas on: the notion of a billionaire asking for a giant underground bunker while the obviously poor Toby just wants to let a bit of light into his small space, or the inverted pyramid Miguel sketches as an initial design, inspired by his agent (Mark Gatiss) observing the pharaonic nature of their secret client. This client wants him to design the bunker in such a way that, even if society above ground has broken down, the hierarchy inside it remains as it was before whatever cataclysm has befallen the world. Later in the film the characters start to directly verbalize Zeller’s messaging: Sofía pointing out to Miguel the irony of designing a bunker when he is already building one at home, having just installed an elaborate anti-home invasion system. Jeremy, the writer, speaks to Sofía about the meaninglessness of life and the futility of leaving behind a legacy, just when she is doubting the meaning of her own life in her unbalanced marriage (note also how it’s Miguel, the more famous of the two, being asked to tell their origin story, while sitting at the head of the dinner table no less). Zeller starts to reveal too much of the calculation that went into his screenplay’s structure, as if he’s hanging the blueprint for a home on its walls, framed and all.

Which isn’t to say there aren’t many things to enjoy in Bunker. If you like this kind of putting two and two together in a story, Zeller’s playwright tendencies will surely be satisfying. Bardem and Cruz give fine performances, as does Dano in his short, one-scene impression of a tech bro. The youngest daughter of Miguel and Sofía is hilarious, and their Russian Blue cat (aptly named Blue) is gorgeous – this queen also was more than ready for her close-up early in the film. Bunker is laced with funny moments throughout, more than one would expect in a film that is about marriage problems and social inequality. Zeller’s direction is strong, with some powerful compositional work, especially against the Almodóvarian red cabinet wall in the kitchen; the way he uses negative space to underline Sofía’s feeling of isolation is particularly striking. Bunker is mostly let down by its screenplay, its obviousness robbing the film of any subtlety and clearly showing Zeller’s schematic writing and his inability to show-not-tell. What remains is a gorgeous-looking film (the house alone is worth the price of admission) that works best when it manages to hide its machinations.