Day 6 of the Venice Film Festival brings two vastly different visions to the Lido: Florian Zeller‘s drama Bunker and Casey Affleck‘s multilayered period piece Company.
Bunker is a marked improvement over writer-director Florian Zeller’s last outing, The Son, and is as wise and thoughtful as his debut, 2020’s The Father, which earned six Oscar nominations — including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay — and won Anthony Hopkins his second Best Actor statuette. After a rousing reception in Venice, Bunker looks to be in the hunt for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture. Best Director, at least this year, seems like a long shot.
Javier Bardem plays Miguel, an award-winning architect tempted to design a bunker for a billionaire (Paul Dano, well-cast) in Hawaii. Penélope Cruz plays Sofia, his wife, who is appalled by the project. To her, the ultra-rich building apocalyptic shelters is the ultimate symbol of a crumbling world.
Part of what’s falling apart is their marriage. Unspoken resentment has been building for Sofia, who can’t advance as a foreigner at her London-based publishing house and wants to move their two daughters back to Milan. Miguel isn’t wild about the bunker assignment either, but he is beguiled by the massive paycheck and what it could do for their firm.
Meanwhile, across the yard, their surly neighbor (the always reliable Stephen Graham) has punched a hole through their shared garage wall to let in light. He clearly feels entitled to do so because his uncle once owned the property, and he has no patience for “foreigners” telling him what to do in the neighborhood where he was raised.
What Zeller accomplishes here — which was sorely lacking in The Son — is lacing the script with absurdity and humor. The nuclear family of Miguel, Sofia, and their girls is compelling, believable, and warm.
However, the third act includes a plot point that feels egregiously on the nose. Without spoiling anything, Miguel’s reaction to these events feels unbelievable, even if enviable — and it has nothing to do with whether he accepts or rejects the Hawaii assignment.
Still, the enthusiastic response at our press screening signals that few share my misgivings. Bunker remains a worthy invitation to rethink our place in the world and what matters most.
Writer/director Casey Affleck’s Company opens in 1975 as a mysterious, beautiful woman named Evelyn (Emily Alyn Lind) arrives at a fine house during a Christmas party. Accompanied by Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm,” she asks for people who don’t live there. Even though she’s lost, she is invited inside and glides in her black drapings into the main room to introduce herself.
At this point, I’m thinking, “OK, she’s like the Grim Reaper in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, and she’s about to announce they all died from the salmon mousse.”
Unfortunately, she doesn’t. What she does do is spin a tale about a woman named Alice (Caylee Cowan), who, in 1953, is found nearly frozen outside the cabin of a hermit named Tom (Nick Nolte). Tom brings her in to warm by his fire, and as she drip-dries, she tells Tom another story about Emmett (Scoot McNairy) and his wife (Adelaide Clemens), who, in 1883, find another person nearly frozen outside in the snow.
The couple drags the poor soul inside and saves his life. This is the young, sullen Caleb (Atticus Affleck, Casey’s youngest son). Caleb is what you might expect Timothée Chalamet to be like as an itinerant laborer in 1883 — prone to quoting Hamlet, pouting, and smoldering. The sexual tension between Emmett’s wife and Caleb is unmistakable, prompting Emmett to put Caleb on night watch — especially since something in the region has been tearing the hearts out of animals and humans alike.
Where this all leads wasn’t what I expected, though during the second act, I felt like I was watching McCabe & Mrs. Miller: Cabin Life. The film looks gorgeous, which may be credited to the eight cinematographers listed, though Affleck manages to make the visual style seamless.
However, it’s far too plodding for its own good, making it unlikely to secure much — if any — theatrical distribution or awards heat. The nested-story structure can work, but not here. Heck, they tell you a story in flashback that isn’t even true. Unreliable Narrator could serve as an alternate title for Company.
Affleck clearly poured much of his heart and soul into the project. He’s assembled a solid cast, and Atticus possesses real charisma and screen presence. But his dad might need to sharpen his storytelling next time.
