If you’re anything like me, — terminally obsessed with movies — you’ll know that the early reactions to Digger have been all over the map. I’ll focus in on one specific piece of the early reactions for the sake of brevity and clarity: the comparisons between Digger and Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 masterpiece Dr. Strangelove. Do I think Digger is on quite the same level as Strangelove? No, but I think it’s damn close, and I also think it’s difficult to tell where mass sentiment will be in several decades’ time. Digger may, like its satirical compatriot, find, grow, and keep an audience. Or it may be a complete financial flop and dig itself to the bottom of the dustbin of cinematic history. But I’m not here to pretend to be a fortune teller. I’m here to tell you what I think of the movies I see, and I think Digger is excellent.
Now, that’s certainly not to say it will please all audiences. As big, bold, and bombastic as the film is, it is not as interested in whether the audience likes it as it may appear on the surface. It makes this clear as the early un-subtle bombast of its first act morphs into a different shade of satire. It does this so smoothly and confidently that it’s jarring, even for someone like me who ended up going with it. Once oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) and US President Compson (John Goodman) retire to Digger’s greenhouse to take respite from the impending natural disaster they have both caused, writer-director Alejandro G. Iñárritu restructures the climate-change satire in his own film for a clever new purpose, which would spoil the entire experience to give away.
Apart from Iñárritu’s sheer courage in making a movie with this tone and this many moving parts to make that tone sing, the two things which make Digger the masterpiece it is are the performances of its cast and the cinematography of the legend Emmanuel Lubezki. Another thing I’ve heard from early reactions is that many viewers found the color palette of the film too washed out. Personally, I’m satisfied with the clear reasoning as to why sections of the film look that way, but there are also several sections which are lit perfectly to fit the set, and the and mood the scene is going for. It’s at once an epic tonal balancing act and a sturdy little noir tucked away in its own edges. What carries the weight of that task is the way Lubezki so flawlessly marries an almost art-deco sensibility with the best cameras money can buy.
Of course, carrying almost the entire weight of the movie — and in this movie, that really is the weight of the world — is Tom Cruise. For all the Oscar talk which may not come to fruition given the polarizing nature of the film, I couldn’t care less if he gets a little gold statue, because he chose to lend his considerable talents to a film this ambitious and unafraid, and I think that can be reward enough. Of course, I’d love to see him get that kind of recognition for this zany, hare-brained role, but at this point, the fact that this movie exists is enough for me if the gold is not to be. The rest of the cast is up to the challenge of this script and production as well, including Riz Ahmed as Ganesh, Digger’s chief environmental scientist, Michael Stuhlbarg as the US Vice President, Jesse Plemons and Sophie Wilde in two roles which are crucial to the movie’s artistic success but would be spoilers to give away, and of course St. Louis legend John Goodman as President Compson. I can’t overstate how much I love the fact that Compson is a total Trump parody, but one which fades into the background, keeping the movie fresher to time than it might otherwise be.
A final note: although this movie isn’t conventionally satisfying, and I can’t guarantee you’ll love it, I really do implore you to see it even outside of my strong recommendation of it as a piece of art. This is because, as of this writing, it will be the final film released by Warner Brothers before the company is purchased by Paramount Skydance this coming Tuesday. There’s something bittersweetly and fittingly poetic about this circumstance. A film which — love it or hate it — was made with such care and craft, and with such a pertinent message, will be the send-off for a company with such a rich filmmaking legacy. If you love movies, it’s at least worth it to have an opinion about Digger. Who knows how many more grand unique visions like this we’ll get on the big screen? | George Napper
