We weren’t going to talk about Digger. All the trailers for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new movie starring Tom Cruise looked insanely weird and intriguing but exhibited none of the characteristics of a film we’d cover on io9. As wild and over-the-top as everything seemed, at its heart, Digger looked like a movie about a billionaire whose oil company was about to end the world. An all-too-real scenario. All science, no fiction. All reality, no fantasy.
However, now that it’s in theaters, we checked it out and, well, yeah. We actually have to talk about Digger. And to do so, we’re going to get into some massive spoilers.
Everything you’ve seen from Digger doesn’t even scratch the surface of what the movie truly is. Those trailers are hiding not one or two surprises; it’s more like four or five, each one more shocking than the last.
The first is the obvious one. The marketing for Digger doesn’t reveal what, exactly, Tom Cruise’s character has done that’s so bad. Very quickly, we learn he’s ignored some signals on an oil rig in Greenland, which then explodes, sending a chunk of ice the size of a major city towards the shores of Europe. When it hits, it will cause massive tsunamis, killing millions. Which happens. Twice, in fact.
But that was there in the marketing, right? We knew it was a movie about a billionaire and his powerful friends trying to stop the end of the world that they caused. What you didn’t get from the marketing was the second reveal. That reveal comes about 30 minutes in, when we learn that Cruise, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, and everyone in the film are actors. Actors who are rehearsing a play about these characters and their exploits. We learn this as a scene ends and stagehands appear out of nowhere around the characters. The camera then pulls back and, yes, we’re on stage.
At first, we don’t quite understand the nature of the play—where it is, who’s staging it, what’s happening—but eventually, that leads us to the third big reveal. The play is a dramatization of something that happened in the past, and this movie takes place in the futuristic, post-apocalyptic world of its aftermath.
You read that right. Digger is a sci-fi movie. You get tiny clues throughout, such as the high-tech phones characters use when the film transitions from stage production to reality. A reality in which Cruise drops the accent, argues with his director, and has a whole subplot about his daughter being lost in another natural disaster. Then, at the very, very end, we see that the play is being staged in a water-covered world with unbreathable air that’s still recovering from the events depicted in the movie.
But wait, there’s more. The final, and most crucial, reveal. The one that kind of brings everything together. If you are at all intrigued by everything you’ve read so far, maybe stop here and give yourself one thing to discover. Or not. Here goes.
The final reveal is that Jesse Plemons’ character in the film is the nephew of the real-life Digger. Years ago, as a boy, he saw a satirical, hateful, but warranted play about the terrible decisions his family made that pretty much ended the world. The play was called “Fossil Fools” and it moved him so much to see people cathartically reacting to the play’s depiction of reality that he bought the rights to it and now, 25 years later, is staging it in a massive, expensive production, as a way of giving back. The movie is us, watching actors prepare a play which depicts the end of humanity as these people knew it. But why?
The Plemons reveal, and his subsequent scenes, basically imply that while Digger, on the surface, looks like a movie about saving the world, it’s actually saying, “We didn’t save the world, so what’s next?” Spun around on our reality, it’s a very pessimistic message. One that shames us for the realities of our existence and challenges us to accept the consequences.
And while hope may be lost, there are answers. The movie, and the characters in the movie, surmise that through art, we can find solace. Art can help us cope with our issues. Art can help us through the dark times. Which is what Digger ends up being about. A boy trying to right the wrongs of his family’s shame by giving art to the world. Though it takes a long, long time to get there.
As you’ve probably seen from the divisive critical reaction, combative new marketing, and likely box office receipts, Digger is not a movie for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not a movie for most people. Plus, even if you believe its message is worth the longer journey to get there, there are still things that hold it back from working on every level. Threads that don’t quite land on an initial viewing.
Nevertheless, in the end I found Digger to be incredibly moving, surprising, and entertaining. It’s a movie for our times, whether you want to believe it or not. And the idea of using art to help process those terrible feelings of inevitable loss and destruction is a nice way of looking at things. At least that’s how I see it.
Digger is now in theaters.
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