A COMEDY OF CATASTROPHIC PROPORTIONS.

It’s not often that a box-office bomb this big becomes the season’s mest talked-about and debated film, but that’s what happened with Digger. Critics were divided, but audiences tended to like the film better. There was reason to ponder why more people chose not to go see the movie in theaters. The marketing made anyone who went in to see Digger expect a Dr. Strangelove-type satire, but the huge twist that changes everything at a certain point in the story makes this film something else entirely.

An aging billionaire
The story begins with Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) waking up in his palatial home. He’s an aging billionaire who’s now making money from drilling for oil in Alaska and Greenland. Digger has been ignoring the warnings and suddenly disaster strikes. The drilling has caused a massive ice shelf to dislodge and head for northern Europe where it will collide with Norway and cause huge tsunamis that will drown the continent. A frantic discussion begins between Digger and the U.S. president (John Goodman) who has problems of his own, as he’s dying of rectal cancer. Maybe nukes can stop the shelf? Or is that a bad idea?

Then, a tree falls.

A future we’re working on
What happens next turns Digger into much more than a wild comedy with a color scheme that looks like a Roy Andersson movie, and characters that seem to step right out of if not Dr. Strangelove, then a Wes Anderson movie. Without revealing the huge twist, let’s make it clear that Digger is to a great extent a dark drama about a future that we’re currently working on, a planet and humanity that will suffer immensely because of man-made climate change. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu came up with the idea after making The Revenant (2015) and first wanted to do the movie with that film’s star Leonardo DiCaprio for Netflix – but it fell apart when the streamer decided to produce Don’t Look Up (2021), a comedy about climate change that looked a little too similar. In the end, Digger became a Tom Cruise project, one that arrived in time after all his Mission: Impossible movies that challenged him physically but perhaps not intellectually. Playing Digger, a character that required heavy makeup to make the actor look his actual age, is more of an acting challenge. Cruise delivers, commanding the screen both as the Texas caricature and as the other, more somber character that emerges after a while; Goodman is completely over-the-top as the President, which is required of him. Overall, it’s a stellar cast, even if Sandra Hüller is underutilized.

Watching this film is like being thrown from one sentiment or crazy idea to another; you’re bound to feel confused, get annoyed, sometimes bored. Most of the time though, I was fascinated by the energy and creativity on display. As for the film’s message, I was less intrigued by what’s said outright, including Digger’s chaotic speech to the European Parliament, than what is shown, as in the end when the full consequences of what’s been going on outside the world of ”Fossil Fools” is revealed; the end titles are not easily ignored.

I would say Iñárritu successfully finds his balance between the film’s different styles, slowly making us understand what he’s up to. There were plenty of critics who found it all jarring and a failed experiment. But we should all agree that the least interesting thing about Digger is talking about its box office. 

Digger 2026-U.S. 129 min. Color. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Screenplay: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr., Nicolás Giacobone, Sabina Berman. Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki. Music: Cosmo Sheldrake. Production Design: Dennis Gassner, Richard Johnson. Costume Design: Jacqueline West. Cast: Tom Cruise (Digger Rockwell/Curtis Markson), Riz Ahmed (Nirav Ganesh), John Goodman (President Compson), Sandra Hüller (Emma Rockwell), Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons.

Trivia: Co-produced by the director and Cruise.

Last word: “We are living in a satire. The more we stretched our imagination, reality was chasing and catching us. It was crazy. Now I think the tone of the film feels almost realistic because if you turn on the TV, this is what is going on. The people in power are trying to convince all of us that everything is fine, and people want to buy that, and that’s the power of someone like Digger.” (Iñárritu, Indiewire)