uk release: october 2nd

directed by: alejandro gonzález iñárritu

a few thoughts: i came into this film with high expectations. for one, i’m a fan of alejandro iñárritu and his films, and was curious to see tom cruise play unhinged characters, what he usually does best. digger is definitely something worth watching for its concept, cinematography and acting performances. it is a pretty flawed cinematic experiment however, and i left the cinema feeling underwhelmed and frustrated. i’ll share some of the plot below, so warning – spoilers ahead.

the film starts with introductions to digger rockwell (tom cruise), an oil tycoon who colludes with compson, the president of the united states (john goodman), to allow digger’s company to extract oil in alaska and greenland. even with the multitude of warnings he received from dr. nirav ganesh, the head of environmental safety (riz ahmed) and his team about the dangers of continuing the mission as planned, both digger and the president are keen to keep the project alive. a pocket exploded unexpectedly, dislodging a huge ice shelf that was heading towards europe quickly. a collision with norway, ginesh explained, would trigger devastating tidal waves across the north sea, which would result in enormous amount of damage and loss of life. rockwell and the president then decide to continue with the mission and hold off telling the public the truth via an information firewall, intercepting words from social media that allude to that disaster. sound familiar? and then, we realise that all of this was just a plot to a play in production called fossil fools, and all these characters are just actors rehersing for the opening show.

this is actually a really cool and innovative concept and not quite something i’ve seen before. and it had so much potential to explore these themes with a more nuanced and introspective approach. instead, iñárritu decided to go for the “this is exactly what this film is about, there’s no real room for interpretation” approach to telling this story. that’s my biggest criticism of the film. and that is fed by the scene involving kenny rockwell (jesse plemons), who pleads to the actors to continue rehersing and go forward with the production, explaining the significance of it and how important it is to finish what they started as a valuable way for the audience to process their grief. to me, it was a cringy and lukewarm attempt at explaining things. in addition to all this, i didn’t really find the film that funny. it’s meant to be a satirical dark comedy, but i didn’t really laugh out loud at any point, and neither did the people during the screening. there were moments that made me chuckle, but they were few and far between.

i don’t want to be all negative however. digger rockwell’s monologue to all the european delegates in the auditorium was fantastic and the most engaging, intruiging, and funny moment in the film. the twist at the end was also a pleasant surprise, and appreciate the bleak reality the film was trying to portray. i also appreciated some of the backstory from the theatre actors. curtis markson, who plays digger (also tom cruise) also learns that a plane carrying his daughter hope disappeared after being caught up in a category six hurricane, adding to the anxiety-enducing energy throughout the film. there’s a lot to admire, but it only scratched the surface for me. i still think it’s worth the watch.