Digger

5/5

I watch a lot of movies, and with that come certain expectations. There are directors, writers, stars, and stories that inevitably help set my own biased expectations. I don’t bother myself so much with this (though I do respect the unsullied movement of filmgoers who shield themselves from all marketing and trailers to ensure they have as untarnished a cinematic experience as possible). For me, I recognize and own my own biases. This means that sometimes a film I am desperately looking forward to results in disappointment largely disproportionate to the actual quality of the film. The first example that comes to mind is adoring Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and We Are Who We Are, and then being deeply disappointed by Queer, a perfectly fine adaptation that just didn’t work for me. The fun of this little game, though, is that oftentimes a film hardly on my radar that I know very little about can erupt onto the scene and become one of my favorite films of the year (like Josephine at Sundance or La Gradiva at the NYFF).

But rarer than all of that is when a film I have an incredible bias toward manages to exceed my wildest expectations. And it is with that that I am delighted to share that Alejandro Iñárritu’s Digger is a genuine cinematic masterpiece. I do not say that lightly. You all know I am an enormous Tom Cruise fan (cut to celebrating my 30th birthday by renting out a theater to show the first Mission: Impossible movie). As a lover of film, I have the utmost respect and admiration for Tom Cruise. He may be our last great movie star, and I could not feel more vindicated in holding that belief with the release of Iñárritu’s magnum opus.

Before I get into spoilers, I’ll just say that this film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It feels like the kind of film we may spend years wondering how anyone was ever allowed to make. Tom Cruise is transformative as Digger Rockwell. It is challenging and uncomfortable, bursting with ideas and showcasing some of the most clever and complex filmmaking you may ever see. And I say that in all seriousness. This film is a box office disaster. Impossible to market (for reasons obvious to anyone who has seen it). Made for an unconscionable amount of money. Released on the precipice of the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger. It is a miracle this film exists and, as the entire film industry sits on the glacier’s edge of great change, Digger reminds us of all we have to lose. As Udo Kier said (and where I found inspiration for the site): “Envelop yourself in the darkness of the movie hall and submit to the artist’s vision.”

This is your final warning.

Digger is not simply about Digger Rockwell, a billionaire oil tycoon who causes the destruction of the modern world. About 30 minutes into the film, Digger unveils the first of its many magic tricks—the film we are watching is actually a rehearsal for a play about Digger Rockwell called Fossil Fools. Cruise faces the greatest acting challenge of his career by needing to both find the character of Digger Rockwell in real time on the screen before us and embody the actor Curtis Markson. I’ll say it again: Cruise is transformative. Considering he is the most recognizable star on the planet, he has an even bigger hill to climb, as we need to see him as these two distinct characters. This is aided by some stellar makeup and prosthetics (this compliment can be extended to the entire film, which is wholly inventive in how it uses the camera and VistaVision to also capture the nuances and detail of a stage play), but it’s Cruise’s performance that sells the whole thing. He vacillates between the satirical bravado of Digger and the less boisterous Curtis Markson with ease, going full-on God mode during the most impressive monologue of the year when Digger addresses the UN (don’t worry—the other most impressive monologues of the year happen to be in this film too).

Cruise is flanked by a truly outstanding supporting cast. Most memorable is Riz Ahmed’s turn as Dr. Nirav Ganesh, Rockwell’s head of environmental safety and the (purposefully) ineffectual audience stand-in. Sandra Hüller’s limited screen time is maximized and recontextualized during the film’s second great monologue, this time provided by the scene-stealing Jesse Plemons, who is eventually revealed to be Digger Rockwell’s nephew, Kenny, financing the latest production of Fossil Fools. The fictional Digger Rockwell existed. Fossil Fools is dramatizing what he did. And the people financing and performing this version of the story are themselves connected to the history they are attempting to recreate. Sandra Hüller? She plays Kenny’s mother, and it becomes quite clear how all these puzzle pieces now so elegantly fit together.

And what a brilliant turn this is. It’s nearly impossible to come up with one thesis for the film, as Iñárritu has enough material to mine for dozens of them. This is maximalist film through and through, and subtlety is simply not needed given the stakes presented to us.

Digger is magnificent because it never gets lost in its maximalism—it is the only way this story can be done justice. This is not a simple satire from the likes of Adam McKay (boy, does this film seem to stick a dagger in the heart of films like Don’t Look Up), and nobody is spared. The politicians and the billionaires, of course, are rightfully skewered. What I think most audiences will find challenging is that the film does not stop there—it points the finger at you. At the role we all play in the complicity of the world we live in. It’s easy to direct our anger at others, but Iñárritu knows that isn’t the whole story, and he’s the only brave motherfucker willing to spend $180 million to so correctly point the finger at all of us.

This is a film about truth, so how could it possibly leave such an obvious factor on the table? Other films do it. We are consumers, after all, with money to spend and money for everyone else to make. As much as we might like to think of ourselves as isolated from these larger issues, they are not beyond our reach. And don’t worry, Iñárritu is not just condescendingly pointing the finger at all of us—he goes so far as to do it to himself, too. One thesis of the film can be best summed up by a scathing quote from Kurt Vonnegut, who said: “During the Vietnam War, which lasted longer than any war we’ve ever been in—and which we lost—every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high.”

Nobody is spared in Digger—nor should they be. What works so well is that this critique is so deeply well-argued in the film. It is blistering and horrific. One scene has been stuck in my head since leaving the theater: Dr. Ganesh proclaims that perception is not reality—reality is reality. In a world that can best be described as post-truth, we have to ask ourselves why we are okay with this. It’s apparent why those in power are—controlling the narrative is what most of Digger’s proverbial leaders discuss, not how to actually fix the problems they wrought—and in Digger’s UN monologue, he nails the point home. He is the sin-eater. We can place our blame and our hatred and our shortcomings on those in power to free us from responsibility so we can go on and enjoy the many conveniences and privileges granted to us.

Digger asks the question, answers it, and forces you, the audience, to reckon with what that really means. What does it mean to be free? Walking away from the film, you will feel awakened to these questions we’ve been so willfully dodging. We are not truly, deeply, irrevocably free anymore. Not when so many of our choices are shaped by systems we know are destructive but continue to participate in because the alternative is inconvenient, expensive, or seemingly impossible. This moment is hammered home in the most jaw-dropping credit sequence I have ever seen. I found myself, surprisingly, moved to tears at the end. I have a hard time saying why. As all the threads came together and the puzzle finally became clear, I was profoundly overwhelmed. And as I sat there, with the curtains closing on the opening night of the 25th anniversary of Fossil Fools, Iñárritu had one last trick up his sleeve. We see the audience don these high-tech face masks as they are ushered out into a destroyed world.

This destroyed world is horrific. It’s clear this catastrophe happened decades ago. The world has ended—but what happens when the world ends and nobody rebuilds it any better? The survivors have not fixed anything. Society has been lost and is continuing to deteriorate. Then Iñárritu blares the “Level 4” warning for us—the audience in our plush recliners. And everything clicks. The audience watching Fossil Fools and the audience watching Digger suddenly become the same audience. How are we so comfortable sitting here, laughing and being entertained by these atrocities when the world around us is falling apart? America will bomb your country, and then we will sit back and enjoy a film about the plight of our soldiers. We can turn suffering into entertainment faster than we can reckon with our own role in creating it.

At the same time, Iñárritu delicately balances both the importance of art and the sheer ineffectiveness of it. Great art will not save us. It can bring us together, provide us with things to learn from, challenge us, and move us—but it will not save us. And this is where I think at least some of the savage critical reception to Digger comes from. Digger is preachy, and it has absolutely no interest in making that preaching comfortable. More importantly, it refuses to give the audience the easy satisfaction of agreeing that somebody else is the problem. There is no focus-testing this film into palatability.

Iñárritu’s fellow artists are just as much to blame for the sick state our world is in. Art can be co-opted. It can aid and abet as much as anyone or anything else. This is not an affirming film. It’s reckoning with the fact that it is screaming into the void—a point proven correct by its dismal opening weekend numbers. As Digger explains in the film, a triple is more impressive than a home run. A home run clears the fence. With a triple, you still have to hustle. You have to earn every base. By that definition, Iñárritu and Cruise have themselves one hell of a triple with Digger. The most inventive and excruciating film of the decade—and likely the last of its kind.