In one sentence: An eccentric oil tycoon scrambles to contain a potentially catastrophic climate disaster after his company’s drilling causes a huge section of Greenland’s ice shelf to break away.
Sometimes a film comes along that subverts expectations so completely that it becomes difficult to decide exactly how you feel about it. It might not entertain in the conventional sense, yet it can still impress, provoke and leave you thinking long after it ends. Digger, the latest film from Alejandro G. Iñárritu, starring Tom Cruise as the titular character, is exactly this kind of movie for me. It is extremely well made, poses some genuinely interesting questions and features exceptional performances, but whether I actually enjoyed watching it is another matter entirely.
The film follows Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), an oil tycoon whose company’s drilling in Greenland has caused a catastrophic break in the ice, sending a huge section of the ice shelf towards Europe. Facing potentially devastating consequences, Digger works alongside an ensemble of characters including the President of the United States (John Goodman) and lead scientist, Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), as they attempt to manage both the disaster and the narrative surrounding it. There is considerably more to Digger than this premise suggests. The film becomes far more meta than I anticipated, but the trailers have deliberately kept this hidden and I will do the same.
This is not the kind of role we are accustomed to seeing Tom Cruise play. Digger is a satire focused on climate change, corporate greed, oil companies, politics and our collective responsibility for the planet. It is also not the Tom Cruise audiences are used to looking at. Buried beneath extensive prosthetics, he appears older, heavier and unrecognisable at times. There is absolutely no denying the quality of his performance. Cruise demonstrates remarkable range and brings out a completely different side of himself, proving just how limiting it can be to think of him primarily as an action star. His performance is deliberately exaggerated, grotesque and absurd, but there is a great deal of control underneath it. It is one of those roles that reminds us what an accomplished actor he is.
The supporting cast is also strong. Riz Ahmed takes Ganesh on quite a journey, moving from nervous restraint to drunken, filterless abandon. John Goodman plays a President who feels like a thinly veiled interpretation of a recognisable public persona, while Sandra Hüller makes an impression as Digger’s half-sister despite limited screen time. Jesse Plemons is another interesting addition and brings the reliably excellent performance we have come to expect from him. Across the board, the acting has a deliberately strange and heightened quality that fits the film’s grotesque world, although it may not be what audiences might expect.
Despite the acting masterclass on display, the movie doesn’t entirely work for me. It lacks conventional entertainment value and perhaps part of that comes from everything feeling a little too close to home. Climate change is not some distant fictional threat invented for the purposes of the story. It is a genuine concern for our planet and beneath all the absurdity Digger makes some frighteningly pertinent observations about consumption, convenience and our desire to have everything immediately available to us. For all its exaggeration, there is a serious point underneath it in that responsibility cannot always be outsourced to corporations, governments or somebody else. Our individual choices exist within the same system, even if the scale of responsibility is vastly different. The premise is deliberately extreme, but the ideas behind it are unsettlingly real. In fact, despite not particularly enjoying the film, I have found myself thinking about its message since watching it. Perhaps that in itself demonstrates that it achieved something.
The visual style is another element I struggled with. The film is deliberately quirky, employing unusual angles and frequently shooting its characters from below, distorting them into almost cartoonish figures. At times there appears to be something close to a fisheye quality to the image, exaggerating faces and bodies and adding to the purposeful artificiality of the world.
Humour is scattered throughout, although for me it is decidedly hit and miss. Humour is naturally subjective, but discomfort seems to be the more consistent goal. We are asked to spend time with a protagonist built almost entirely from contradictions. Digger appears largely indifferent to the environmental consequences of his actions and particularly uninterested in the fate of polar bears, yet he adores his thirty year-old cat, Maggie, and cannot bear the thought of losing her. His home reinforces the hypocrisy, decorated with animal heads and taxidermied endangered species, some even hanging from the ceiling. It is absurd, but there is something recognisable underneath it. Humans are very good at caring deeply about the things directly in front of us while remaining strangely detached from suffering or destruction that feels further away. In many ways, Digger is an extreme embodiment of this contradiction.
Colour also appears to play an important role. Digger himself is simultaneously grey and colourful, from his pallor to his eccentric clothing, visually reinforcing the contradictions within him. The wider film frequently uses bold, artificial colour in a purposeful way. This becomes increasingly important as the film progresses, with the colour of its final moments proving particularly telling.
The ending is perhaps where Digger is most effective. Its final scene hangs on screen as the credits begin to roll. It is both powerful and deeply disturbing. Whatever confusion came before it, the film’s underlying message becomes difficult to ignore. It drives home the immediacy of what the movie has been exploring and leaves an uncomfortable image behind.
The trailer prepares audiences for a climate change satire, but it does not prepare them for the structure Iñárritu uses to tell it. There is a moment when the film completely pulls the rug from underneath the audience and moves into territory I had not anticipated at all. It is intentionally disorientating and, in hindsight, I understand the creative decision more than I did while watching it. At the time, however, it makes for a confusing and uncomfortable experience. Perhaps this is precisely the point. Digger doesn’t necessarily seem interested in making its audience comfortable. The difficulty is that deliberately creating discomfort doesn’t automatically make a film engaging and I suspect this is where audiences will be sharply divided.
Pacing compounds the problem. At just over two hours, the runtime itself is hardly unusual, but it feels considerably longer. People in my screening walked out before the film reached its conclusion, and I can understand why its pacing and unconventional structure might prove challenging for viewers.
Ultimately, Digger is unlike anything I have seen before and that alone deserves some credit. Its trailers cleverly conceal one of its biggest creative swings, Tom Cruise delivers a remarkable and deeply unconventional performance and its message about climate change, consumption and responsibility is genuinely frightening. However, its unusual structure, languid pacing and deliberately uncomfortable style made it a challenging film for me to connect with. This is one of those rare movies I can admire considerably more than I enjoyed. It is bold, intelligent and exceptionally well acted, and it has left me thinking about its message. Whether that makes it successful may depend entirely on what you believe cinema is supposed to do. Digger may not be conventionally entertaining, but it certainly isn’t easily forgotten.
★★★ (3/5)
