The Decent Parts of ‘Digger’ Are Buried Beneath the Most Tiresome
Warner Bros. Pictures
Tom Cruise does a lot of blustering in Alejandro Iñárritu’s Digger. Donning mauve suits and waving a cowboy hat as a prop, he’s loud, cocky, headstrong, and unapologetic. He plays the kind of man who tells another “you are not afraid to disappoint me” as though it’s a character flaw. But later in the film, there’s a moment where Cruise’s character becomes more honestly exasperated. Not explosive or grandiose; simply annoyed, conflicted. Not knowing how to move forward, he chafes, “It’s just… a little too much.” And well. Yeah. That pretty effectively sums it up.
Between his actively decaying cat, Maggie, his importunate sister, Emma (Sandra Hüller), and the fact that his oil rig in Greenland just exploded, sending an enormous ice shelf hurtling toward the European coastline and threatening millions of people, Digger Rockwell (Cruise) has a lot of problems. But he also has a lot of money, a lot of power, and a lot of connections, all of which give him the certainty that he’ll make it through this catastrophe unscathed. Or at least still wildly rich and powerful. With the crisis unleashed, the president (John Goodman) is a befuddled and impotent leader who’s run out of ideas—not that he had any to begin with—so he turns to Digger for help. The very man to blame for the climate disaster is now the only man who can prevent a cataclysm.
On paper Digger holds a lot of intrigue: the biggest character swing for Cruise since 1999’s Magnolia (not including his brief turn in Tropic Thunder as Les Grossman, who shares a lot of common DNA with Digger); a clever supporting cast to surround Cruise, including Hüller, Goodman, Riz Ahmed (as Digger’s top scientist, Dr. Ganesh), and Jesse Plemons; and, in Iñárritu, a director with a penchant for bold design, energetic blocking, and elaborate extended takes. But then the first trailer was released, and I grew concerned. The trailer resembled Don’t Look Up filtered through the uncanniness of Yorgos Lanthimos’ recent films. Trailers can certainly be misleading, but it wasn’t an auspicious start. Thankfully, I can confirm that Digger is not that movie. Sort of.
What you see with Digger is not what you get. At first it is, as the trailer pulls much from the opening thirty minutes, but there comes a point where Iñárritu’s film zags. Without saying too much, Digger instantly becomes more curious and more knowing. Yes, Cruise’s performance is conspicuous to the point of camp (though it does roundly confirm my misgivings about bolo ties). Yes, the script is strained and obvious. The film knows it. Far from being Diet Lanthimos with a message as subtle as a blimp explosion, Digger eventually questions whether there’s a meaningful path somewhere between rapacious exploitation and climate doomerism.
There are bad actors in power making ruinous decisions (and as repeatedly observed in Digger, these are disproportionately old, white men—politicians, executives, and pastors—kicking blame and responsibility toward anyone but themselves). There are devastating changes occurring throughout the world, changing the landscapes, seascapes, and weather patterns. How do we who aren’t granted a voice in those boardrooms and halls of power—how do we live in this world? One response is hopelessness, an enervated frustration. Another response is to reconfigure seductive psychopaths such as Digger into clowns, catalyzing farce with gallows humor. Digger considers these options while also wondering if there’s still energy for care and human compassion. It’s with these questions, as the characters unfold in unexpected ways, that Iñárritu’s film uncovers something earthier and essential.
Regretfully, Digger does not stay with these questions, only lightly sprinkling them in before veering back toward the buffoonery. There are still some pleasures to be had here. Cruise is the loudest performance by many decibels (though Goodman does his best to match him), and your mileage may vary with this one. Cruise will be endlessly talked about, as intended, though I believe any future awards discussion will be driven by conflating the most acting with the best. On the other hand, I haven’t found a Hüller performance yet that I don’t enjoy, even if her recent Hollywood roles (here and in Project Hail Mary) have been too brief. No one has as much fun with the tone and script as Ahmed; where Goodman howls and Cruise chews the cud of a ridiculous accent, Ahmed is more flexible as Ganesh. He finds a range for timidity, drunkenness, fury, and exhaustion, adding a little physical comedy into the mix. And while Plemon’s role is quick, he delivers the best scene of the film.
Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson’s production design deserves praise for its hazy precision. Digger is the only major Hollywood film I’ve encountered to draw such clear inspiration from Roy Andersson’s torpid comedy. The lethargic absurdism that permeates Songs from the Second Floor and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (look, the titles themselves should tell you what you’re getting into) is welcomed into Iñárritu’s designs, with tableaus that are at once lovely and unnervingly frozen. The color palette is sickly, muted with mustards, mauves, sages, and grays, like a local government office that hasn’t been updated since the late 70s. Just about everyone present is pale and bloodless. Oh, and in one extended crowd scene there’s clearly a mannequin filling in that Iñárritu keeps in the shot—he clearly doesn’t mind if we see the frivolities set at the edges of the frame.
So the problem is not that Digger is a clueless, uninteresting, or uninspired film. It bears a self-awareness, and there are pieces to latch on to in supporting performances, tone, or themes. The problem is that the film persistently spends its time on its least interesting pieces. It’s not all cartoonish villainy—there’s certainly another point to it all—but it can’t pull itself away from that mode longer than a few minutes at a time. It’s a problem of choice, of disordered desire, not of lack. Here, the reflexivity that initially expands the film becomes self-flagellation. Fessing up to an overbearing style does not, by itself, redeem that style. A character can grow flustered about the ambiguity between farce, satire, and serious criticism, but it only points out the film’s lack of conviction.
“You can’t see what makes it funny.” One character says this to another, but it’s hard not to imagine Iñárritu reprimanding his audience of the same shortsightedness. Digger unveils a real, complex humanity when it zags, but it doesn’t stay committed to that turn at a thematic or technical level. (As a technical aside, there are numerous emotionally crucial shots that betray the form Iñárritu elects to work with.) The filmmakers know that the clips from the trailer are mostly just annoying, but they continue to stretch those scenes out, asking: Aren’t you enjoying this yet? The answer is that there are things to enjoy in Digger, but the journey to get there is just so exhausting.
