‘Digger’ Review: Controlling the Narrative

The following Review contains spoilers for Digger.

When Iñárritu first announced over two years ago that his next film would star Tom Cruise, many film fans grew incredibly curious about the mysterious project we knew very little of, as Cruise hasn’t stepped out of being an action hero since Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder in 2008. As the months passed, more phenomenal actors were added to the cast, including John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Jesse Plemons, and Sandra Hüller, who was coming off a massive year in 2023. The film’s working title, “Judy,” and its plot were then announced: “The world’s most powerful man tries to prove to humanity that he is their savior after a disaster of his own creation.” This further stoked the flames of excitement until a fifty-second teaser premiered before screenings of Avatar: Fire and Ash, revealing that the film was now titled Digger, whilst a balding Tom Cruise in a fat suit danced to Gorillaz’s “O Green World” on an oil rig. This reveal perplexed many alike, but drew me in immediately. That teaser was one of my favorite pieces of marketing I’d seen for a film last year, and it hooked me from the first frame of Cruise slamming a shovel into the floor. Unfortunately, updates on the film were radio silent until a Cruise retrospective trailer before anniversary screenings of Top Gun took place, featuring thirteen seconds of new footage from Digger. Following the two tiny teasers, Warner Bros. released two full-length trailers in July and September, and with each release of a new trailer for the film, audiences seemed to be more and more perplexed and less than impressed, to say the least. Before the film’s release, the press that had attended early screenings of the film were utterly divided on whether Innaritu’s newest film was pretentious garbage or a masterpiece. I tend to land towards the latter. 

Digger follows the titular character, Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), the world’s wealthiest oil tycoon, as one of his rigs in Greenland suffers an explosion due to decades of environmental ignorance, causing an ice shelf the size of Washington, D.C., to break loose and head towards Northern Europe, where, if it collides, could cause the downward spiral of humanity as we know it. From the opening frame of methane bubbles rising to the surface from the ocean floor, an eerily calming score from Cosmo Sheldrake, filled with birds chirping, plays in the background, highlighting the current environmental disasters on the rise not only in the universe of the movie, but in audiences’ reality. We then see curtains rise, revealing the beautiful landscape Rockwell’s decrepit estate overlooks (which will make sense later). Digger’s 30-year-old cat, Maggie, experiences a rough morning as her condition worsens by the minute, with Digger caring more about the declining health of his feline companion than the dozens of employees trying to reach him about the impending disaster. Digger is then finally informed of the massive divide in the ice shelf in Greenland, caring instead about the profits rather than the damage to the environment or lives lost (like many world leaders today). He is then briefed about an explosion that has occurred on the rig by his chief of environmental security, Dr. Ganesh (played excellently by Riz Ahmed). Ganesh anxiously tries to get through to his bond-villain-like boss, only to fail time and time again. Digger’s half-sister, Emma (Sandra Hüller), then storms in as she worries about what the environmental disaster could do to the reputation of her company, which prides itself on renewable energy sources, in which Digger hilariously has a stake in. Digger and Ganesh then proceed to brief President Compson (John Goodman) and Vice President Eddy (Michael Stuhlbarg) about the ramifications of Judy’s drifting. While the film is pretty funny up to this point, attentive audiences can feel like something is off, perhaps a bit too off, whether it be the theatricality of the dialogue and line-reading, or the geometry of Digger’s estate that makes no sense from a structural standpoint; something is off. Digger and Compson then step into his mother’s solarium for a private discussion about the President’s secret colon cancer. Before they can continue the conversation, a tree in the distance falls over, but the way it falls over feels almost animated. A large human then rises from the ground as other large crew members work in the background; stage lights come on, a director named Hannah (Sophie Wilde) walks in and discusses the scene with Digger; and all becomes revealed: what we have been watching is a play about the real-life disaster of Judy that occurred over thirty years ago. 

As I had mentioned earlier, attentive audience members could have seen something was amiss, from the gorgeous cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki shot on stunning VistaVision, only staying in mainly enclosed spaces, and the wonderfully exaggerated production design by Dennis Gassner, which instills an instinct in audiences that what they are watching is visually far from the reality we know today. The structure of the rest of the film then bounces back and forth between the backstage of the rehearsals leading up to the opening night of the play, hilariously titled Fossil Fools, and the actual sequences of the play itself, creating a push and pull within the narrative, even to the point where the two stories bleed together as the aspect ratio of the play scenes are 1.50:1 and the backstage sequences 1.85:1. Until the film begins using the 1.85:1 aspect ratio during moments of the play, like when Digger notices the buckets catching leaking water, showing Judy’s effects still to this day. However, this is not done to confuse audiences, as we later discover the play was funded by the real-life Digger Rockwell’s nephew, Kenny (Jesse Plemons), showing that even after the rich have doomed us all, they’ll still have a hand in our arts & entertainment. Which makes this all the more fitting, as it was Warner Bros. last film to be released before their merger into Skydance with the Ellisons ’ Paramount. Kenny even bestows upon Digger’s actor, Curtis Markson, a privilege that nobody else gets, finding his lost daughter’s flight in a hurricane by simply finding her phone number. It’s an uncomfortable moment that has stuck with me in the two times I’ve seen the film. Would Kenny have given this privilege to any other cast members or just Curtis because he claims that the actor resembles his late Uncle?

One of the theses Iñárritu makes with Digger is that no matter what our status, or who we are in the world, we all shape narratives around our own lives to make us feel better about our situation, as Cruise calls out the European Parliament for this exact thing in a powerhouse sequence that should land him his long-awaited Academy Award. “You want the freedom to live in the comfort of your unsustainable lives.” Which is even funnier as Digger until this point kept lying to himself that Maggie was okay, and not decomposing in his arms. With the Parliament sequence essentially calling out the audience watching the film for not acting on the anger they claim to have at these corrupt systems that control the masses, and that these “simple solutions” aren’t as black and white as we believe, showing Digger isn’t the only one to alter stories to make himself feel better. The messaging is as blunt as a hit in the face with a baseball bat but it works due to the exaggerated nature of Fossil Fools. All of this culminates in the finale of the play, which has Digger honoring his dead cat with a young Kenny and coming to terms with change before committing suicide. We are then shown the catharsis that art gives communities even in a dystopian society, only for a loudspeaker to announce “Level 4”, as the audience puts on electronic face masks (made by Rockwell’s nephew, mind you) and leave the theater to enter a ruined world. Melanie’s “Look What They’ve Done To My Song” hauntingly plays over a vista of a destroyed and flooded city while the credits roll, showing that after experiencing joint catharsis in that theater, when we walk back onto the streets, we will be reminded of the horrors of everyday life. The song continues until “Level 4” is announced to the audience still watching the film, followed by the same bird chirps that started the movie. 

Digger is an intentionally abrasive piece of filmmaking that is the creation of a director and “Movie Star” still making movies in a dying world and grappling with the idea of whether it even matters at the end of the day. While it won’t work for everyone, it is a singular work about the anxieties of today. Iñárritu, like many, has voiced his concerns over climate change for years, and nothing seems to be getting better, as we have passed far beyond the point of no return with the damage we’ve done to Mother Nature. I truly think this is my favorite Iñárritu film I’ve seen, as he changes the structure of the film’s story to highlight how those in power can control narratives that are fed to the masses; it’s an incredibly bold piece of filmmaking that was absolutely insane to watch on an IMAX screen in 2026. The film also tackles the importance of satire in a world where everything is bleak, highlighting that catharsis and laughter throughout these situations can be a form of activism, the issue is, does it actually achieve anything, or is art just self aggrandizing? If you’re into movies that truly make you think about the world and your place in it, I highly recommend Digger, as it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and if that’s not high praise in a world where people can type whatever into an AI and have it spit out garbage for them, I don’t know what is.

Digger was written by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, based on a story by Iñárritu, Berman, and Jez Butterworth. The film was directed by Iñárritu and stars Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophia Wilde, and Emma D’Arcy. 

Digger was released in theaters and IMAX by Warner Bros. on October 2nd. 

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