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BUNKER

September 8, 2026

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Paul Dano, Mark Gatiss, Florian Zeller

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Miguel and Sofia Mereno (Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz) seem to have it all. He’s an award winning architect, she’s an editor at a publishing house; they live in an expensive, beautiful house in London with their two children and pedigree cat. And when we first meet them Miguel is telling a table of friends at a high end restaurant the story of their romance. Over their first dinner he had wept as she talked and, moved by his sensitivity, she had kissed him. While the table sighs over this, Miguel quickly qualifies the story; she had cats, he was allergic, the tears were not real. 

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Paul Dano, Mark Gatiss, Florian Zeller
Blue Morning Pictures/Mod Producciones/Pathé Films

When the couple look into each other’s eyes after this confession there is another conversation that is going on – one that takes further shape as he accepts a commission to design a survival bunker for a tech billionaire (Paul Dano channeling Musk). The idea of building fortresses that only the rich can access is immoral to Sofia whose dissatisfaction with her career and marriage becomes a chasm as Miguel says of most things ‘in the end it all comes down to money’.

Money, and wealth disparity, are at the heart of Florian Zeller’s latest drama which explores the way rich people use their resources to control and insulate, that the more they have the more they fear losing. Miguel negotiates with his working class neighbour, Toby (an excellent Stephen Graham) using the lure of cash to smooth over a dispute about a window in a way that prompts Toby to drop the c-bomb under his breath. A massive payday is the sticking point between the spouses, and the spectre of robbery and economic revolution hangs over everything as the tech bro predicts social collapse and a security engineer insists on high-tech alarms in the family home. 

But it’s also a study of a fractured marriage, fissuring under the pressure of unspoken discussion. Miguel and Sofia may seem to enjoy one another (they’re funny and light together as they attend a friend’s art gallery and are bemused by some of the pieces) but Sofia’s sadness in viewing a painting of intimacy, her reaction to a young author (Patrick Schwarzenegger) discussing the need to live in the moment, and even the way she folds herself into her duvet at night tell a different story. It’s like that meet-cute Miguel recounts – the reality is less romantic.

Though Zeller’s stagey screenplay and direction are handsome and hold interest, the material is elevated by the pairing of real-life couple Cruz and Bardem. Their genuine history informs every look and gesture, and it’s their humanity and warmth that nudges the final reel over the line as a rather too neat characterisation bait-and-switch is executed. As a conversation about class and economics, Bunker is slippery. As a depiction of mid-life marriage, it’s intriguing. But it’s most compelling as a portrait of the screen presence of Cruz and Bardem, and the tangible connection between them.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of BLUE MORNING PICTURES/MOD PRODUCCIONES/PATHÉ FILMS
Bunker premiered at the 83rd Venice Film Festival

JAVIER BARDEM

May 20, 2026

Javier Bardem, Marina Sylvie Foïs, Melina Matthews, Victoria Luengo
Cannes Dispatch festival ticket
Javier Bardem, Marina Sylvie Foïs, Melina Matthews, Victoria Luengo

CANNES DISPATCH
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER

Javier Bardem’s latest film, El ser querido, is the perfect subject matter for a movie premiering at cinéaste Cannes Film Festival – it charts the making of a film as a father and daughter come together to work on a project and their dysfunctional relationship. Greg Williams captured the actor on his balcony at the JW Marriott on the Croisette, before Bardem stepped on the red carpet. In the film from director Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Bardem plays a famous director going through a personal crisis who offers his estranged actor daughter (Victoria Luengo) a role of his latest opus, only for past hurt to surface and Bardem’s volatile helmer to rage about losing the light and eating on camera. He is coercive, threatening and controlling. The toxic masculinity on display is something Bardem said was widespread and institutionalised in his press conference earlier in the day.

Javier Bardem, Marina Sylvie Foïs, Melina Matthews, Victoria Luengo

‘The problem comes from the bad education that we had received for many ages, which I’m part of. I’m 57 years old, coming from a very machista country called Spain, where there is an average of two women killed monthly by their ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends, which is horrible,’ he told journalists. ‘And we kind of normalised it. I mean, are we fucking nuts? We are killing women because some men think they own them, they possess them.’  He went on to expand the criticism wider than personal or social, to world politics. ‘That problem also goes to Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin and Mr. Netanyahu, the big balls man saying, ‘my cock is bigger than yours, and I’m gonna bomb the shit out of you.’ It’s a fucking male toxic behavior that is creating thousands of dead people, so yeah, we have to talk about it. And I think we are talking about it… We are more aware of it, thankfully, because maybe 20 years ago [this] was something that nobody will pay attention to as a problem, and, and I think this movie speaks about that…in this movie there are three people that say ‘no’ to [my character]: three women.’

Javier Bardem, Marina Sylvie Foïs, Melina Matthews, Victoria Luengo

Bardem went on to discuss the war in Gaza and to explain his decision to use his stature in the public eye to prompt debate. ‘I don’t have any other power or more power than you guys, but I use it in the best way I know.’ When asked if he worries about being so outspoken he admitted that ‘the fear does exist, granted, but one has to do things even if you feel a bit scared or afraid. You have to be able to look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the eyes. My mother taught me to be the way I am. There is no plan B. This entails consequences, which I am fully ready to shoulder.’

Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS
Words by JANE CROWTHER
El ser querido premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

F1: THE MOVIE

June 27, 2025

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Made by the same dream team behind Top Gun: Maverick, this high-performance star vehicle is pure popcorn entertainment that slipstreams Tom Cruise’s mega hit with dynamic racing scenes and a storyline that requires paddock-precision suspension (of disbelief). Yes, it’s highly improbable that a sixty-something renegade Indy car racer would be plopped in the number one seat of a F1 team and proceed to smash their cars and methodology to smithereens – but presented this slickly with as much star power to rival the horsepower, you’ll allow it.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

Brad Pitt is our rebel, Sonny Hayes, an instinctively brilliant but unpredictable driver with a back scar from an accident when he was the hottest young driver in Formula one. Emotionally scarred (stunted?) by the incident, Sonny now lives out of his van while travelling from driving job to driving job, but never sticking around. While he can push his team to pole position with crafty moves, he’s not interested in glory – until Javiar Bardem’s F1 team owner, Reuben, comes calling with an eyewatering cheque and an offer to know that Hayes could be ‘the best in the world’. His team, Apex, has a hotrod technical director, Kate (Kerry Condon) and a young gun driver, Joshua (Damson Idris) but is lagging behind on the grid. During the next travelogue two hours, Sonny will race the global Grand Prix circuit throwing the rules out the window, romancing the brains of the operation and clashing with his hothead teammate. There’s some corporate shenanigans, F1 cameos (Lewis Hamilton produces) plus a soundtrack filled with stadium bangers and a propulsive Hans Zimmerman score.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films
Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

The races are joltingly visceral (especially the opening Daytona 24 introduction), giving audiences a glimpse into the claustrophobic, G-force, missile-on-wheels perspective on the track while the characters are elevated by polesitter performers. Condon in particular shines, her charming scepticism and beguiling way of delivering a sentence how you’d least expect it making Kate far more than a simple ‘love interest’, while Bardem barely flexes to steal focus – and that’s not even taking into account his spectacular suits. Idris holds his own against the charisma of Pitt, detonating that Thelma & Louise smile, the zero-Fs of Tyler Durden and the sartorial insouciance of Cliff Booth. If you’re going to believe a driver approaching his pension can outstrip Verstappen, Pitt is the man to do it.

Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, F1: The Movie, Javier Bardem, Joseph Kosinski, Kerry Condon
Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/Apple Original Films
F1: The Movie is in cinemas now