Digger is many issues. It’s the primary Tom Cruise film in over a decade to not function recognizable IP, fighter planes, or each. Its director Alejandro Iñárritu’s greatest swing but after divisive, high-brow movies like Birdman and The Revenant. It’s a brutal condemnation of late-stage capitalism. It’s additionally a reasonably intelligent magic trick.
Digger accommodates three massive reveals that reshape our understanding of the film in varied methods. To essentially perceive what Digger is about, it’s worthwhile to grapple with all three, and the way in which they match collectively (each efficiently and unsuccessfully) to inform a fancy story about discovering which means on the finish of the world.
(Additionally, in case you’re questioning whether or not Digger is a musical, you’ve got come to the correct place.)
Warning: full spoilers for Digger under.
Digger’s first massive twist ruins the film
The primary massive reveal comes about half-hour into Digger. After assembly the getting old oil baron Rockwell Digger (Cruise), we rapidly study that his Greenland drilling operation has by accident dislodged an enormous hunk of ice into the Atlantic Ocean, and it’s heading straight for Northern Europe. The U.S. President (John Goodman) and his cupboard present up at Digger’s mansion to debate their finest choices (there are none). Then, as Digger and President Compson step apart into a non-public room to debate different issues, Iñárritu performs his first trick: The majestic tree outdoors slowly suggestions over in entrance of them… after which an enormous hand reaches out from behind the horizon to seize it.
Seems, nothing we have seen up so far is actual. We’re truly watching actors in the course of a ultimate rehearsal for an elaborate new play, which stars an actor named Curtis (Cruise) as Digger Rockwell. After a quick reset, the rehearsal continues, however from this level on, the scenes from the play are intercut with behind-the-scenes drama as Curtis clashes along with his director and offers with a private household disaster.
Whereas Curtis prepares to take the stage in a starring position for what appears to be a serious theatrical occasion, his daughter is flying dwelling from Jamaica. They communicate by way of FaceTime earlier than she takes off, and he or she mentions a storm may delay the flight. Later, we study the flight was diverted fully, and no one is aware of the place it landed. Curtis considers abandoning the play and heading dwelling, however his spouse convinces him to remain the course whereas she makes an attempt to trace down their lacking daughter.
None of this actually provides a lot to Digger‘s most important plotline, which is the play throughout the film. The story of Digger Rockwell nonetheless occupies a lot of the runtime and is generally shot by Iñárritu to really feel like some form of heightened actuality. You possibly can generally see the seams of a theatrical manufacturing (like when an indignant crowd in a single scene is clearly crammed out with life-sized dolls), however more often than not, it makes zero sense that that is ostensibly taking place on a bodily stage in an precise theater.
I am unsure what the secondary plotline about Curtis’ household is basically meant so as to add to Digger. The element of a hurricane looks as if a gesture on the risks of synthetic local weather change that the primary plotline is all about, however it does not contribute a lot to an already high-stakes story. On the similar time, revealing that Digger is definitely simply a clumsy actor named Curtis undercuts Cruise’s whole efficiency. It is loads much less enjoyable to see the film star swagger and bluster and monologue once we know he is simply placing on a present even throughout the world of the film.
Nevertheless, there is a second reveal, a lot nearer to the top of the movie, that gained me over to Digger‘s whole gimmick.
Digger’s second massive twist saves it
All through Digger, Curtis is consistently being accosted by Kenny, a mysterious weirdo performed by Jesse Plemons who’s lurking round on set and appears to be the cash behind all the manufacturing. At one level, Kenny reveals he runs some form of intelligence firm and presents to assist discover Curtis’ daughter. Nevertheless, it is solely close to the top of the movie that we study his true position.
Whereas rehearsing a scene the place Digger, President Compson, and the vp all board Air Drive One to supervise the bombing of a second errant iceberg, Curtis fully loses it. To be honest, the scene is ridiculous, with the VP (Michael Stuhlbarg) skipping round on the airplane and shouting “Yippee” as rockets blast the city-sized iceberg into smaller (however nonetheless huge) chunks. Curtis complains to the director that the president and vp would by no means be on a airplane collectively for security functions, and likewise that not one of the three characters had been anyplace close to this occasion when it occurred in actual life.
That alone is an enormous reveal. For the primary time, nearly two hours into the film, we study that the occasions we’re watching aren’t only a satirical play about local weather change, they are a satirical reenactment of an apocalyptic occasion that truly occurred throughout the world of Digger. However earlier than this revelation may even sink in, Kenny intervenes.
The monologue that Plemmons delivers subsequent is maybe crucial a part of all the film. He reveals that he’s truly Kenny Rockwell, the nephew of Digger, performed by a younger boy within the play throughout the film. Kenny explains that he first noticed this play, which is titled Fossil Fools, at a small theater in London the place it was carried out by three actors who took turns delivering monologues. Fossil Fools grew to become a cult basic for its darkly comedic tackle a real-life apocalyptic occasion (the primary iceberg kills hundreds of thousands, the second crashes into Alaska and fully reshapes the Earth’s local weather). So he purchased the rights to the play and funded an elaborate efficiency with the perfect actors and director he might discover.
For Kenny, the explanation to do all this goes again to his expertise the primary time he noticed Fossil Fools. On the finish of that efficiency, all the theater broke out into applause and laughter regardless of the horrors of what they’d all skilled in actual life. He desires to offer individuals a motive to exit and snicker in a world that is seemingly a lot worse than the one we’re dwelling in at the moment.
This second reveal, that Digger takes place in a world the place every little thing we have been watching already occurred, reorients all the film. It abruptly is smart why Curtis is so uncomfortable in regards to the efficiency. The play is not just a few bizarre thought experiment; It is an especially darkish reflection of actuality. On this second, Iñárritu redeems Digger by making that second layer of plot truly imply one thing. It isn’t only a intelligent twist for the sake of being intelligent, it is a brutally darkish reveal that redefines each single scene we have watched as much as that time.
After Kenny’s massive speech, Digger is mainly completed, however there’s yet another second value speaking about.
One ultimate reveal
The rehearsal resumes and we watch Digger Rockwell’s ultimate moments play out, exiled to an outdated oil rig within the now-summery arctic along with his household whereas the world seemingly burns. Digger dies, and abruptly, the beforehand empty theater is filled with a cheering crowd.
Then a siren blares because the theater doorways open, revealing a smoggy world outdoors. Everybody within the viewers concurrently pulls out glossy, high-tech air-filter masks and slowly information out.
Iñárritu cuts to the outside of the theater to disclose a billboard asserting the twenty fifth anniversary efficiency of Fossil Fools. Then he pans slowly to disclose a disturbing, post-apocalyptic metropolis. The sky is gray, the streets are flooded, and closely armed troopers patrol each nook. It is a hanging picture that looks like a preview of our personal not-so-distant future. However in Digger, it is a ultimate reminder that even when the world ends and society collapses, we’ll nonetheless must discover a option to entertain ourselves and snicker by means of our distress.
So wait, is Digger a musical?
Oh, proper. No, Digger is just not even the slightest little bit of a musical.
Then once more, given the entire play-within-a-movie premise, a Digger musical truly sort of is smart throughout the movie’s universe. It is most likely solely a matter of time earlier than the cult basic play will get tailored right into a Broadway present with catchy songs about oil and icebergs.
I doubt we’ll ever get to see that musical IRL, however stranger issues have occurred.