Florian Zeller’s psychological thriller “Bunker” received the longest ovation of this year’s Venice Film Festival, though critics who saw the film hours earlier were considerably more measured than the crowd that stood and applauded for roughly 15 to 16 minutes after its premiere.
Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, married in real life, star as a couple whose marriage frays after the husband, an architect, takes a job building a luxury bunker for a tech billionaire. Zeller wrote the script specifically for the pair, calling them his starting point for the project and citing their status as a real-life couple as a way to blur the line between fiction and reality. During the ovation, Cruz broke into tears and embraced Bardem while thanking the crowd; Zeller had his cast, which also includes Patrick Schwarzenegger and Paul Dano, step forward individually to receive applause.
The reception placed “Bunker” among the longest ovations in Venice’s recent history, trailing Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” and Kaouther Ben Hania’s “The Voice of Hind Rajab,” both of which ran longer. Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera reportedly led an additional round of applause for the stars.
Critics, however, offered a cooler assessment than the premiere-night enthusiasm suggested, with reviews landing warmer than the harsh notices that greeted Zeller’s previous feature, “The Son,” but falling well short of the acclaim for his debut, “The Father.” That 2021 film earned Anthony Hopkins a best actor Oscar and brought Zeller a shared statue for adapted screenplay. Some observers at Venice suggested the extended applause reflected excitement over seeing Bardem and Cruz together on screen as much as enthusiasm for the film itself.
Sony Pictures Classics, which also released “The Father” and “The Son,” acquired North American and other territory rights to “Bunker” and plans an awards-qualifying release later this year ahead of a wider U.S. theatrical rollout in early 2027. The studio previously guided “The Father” to six Oscar nominations, including best picture, and will be looking to Cruz and Bardem’s performances to generate similar traction this awards season.
