On Tuesday night, after the review embargo lifted, Warner Bros activated an interesting marketing campaign that riffed on the already divisive reaction to their expensive new Tom Cruise movie Digger. Their pitch? “Decide for yourself.” What one person calls “unpleasant” is another person’s “masterpiece.” It’s a technique infinitely more daring and interesting than the largely empty film they’re selling.
It was almost fated to end this way: Back in 2024, Warner Bros greenlit this Big Oil satire from the typically reliable auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu (Birdman, Amores Perros) with an eyewatering rumored budget of $125 million—you imagine based on the fact that Cruise, one of today’s few real box office draws, had signed on to star. That’s a steep hill to climb in today’s climate, and making money isn’t everything, but all of the similar anxieties that surrounded One Battle After Another this time last year—that an original movie made for a lot of money might crash and burn—lifted when we realized that it was actually quite a good movie.
The problem with Digger is that it’s not interested in engaging its audience. It’s a black comedy with barely a funny joke in it. A movie with a message that we’ve been fed innumerable times before in a more piercing fashion. This “big swing” spirit that’s enshrouded this movie since we heard of its existence—one that Iñárritu and the studio is asking critics to withhold—doesn’t really make it better. In fact, it exposes plenty of flaws in the film’s thoughtless logic. I get the impression that that polite request has been made because it makes what’s already a fairly niche film even more niche, narrowing its appeal. That’s a death knell for its box office potential.
So what’s it about? In the walls of his mansion in America, billionaire oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Cruise) lives a sheltered existence, devoid of empathy for anyone other than his mangy, incontinent cat. A phone call comes: In Greenland, one of his lucrative oil rigs has caused a widening crevice in the ice, and methane is escaping. Any moment now, an explosion will put Digger’s employees in danger, and cause a massive block of ice to detach, get caught in a jetstream that will drag it towards northern Europe, and cause a seismic, catastrophic tsunami that will kill hundreds of thousands of people.
A meeting of US government officials is called, including the hapless President Compson played by John Goodman, but of course it’s the moneymakers, not the policymakers, who lead the response. Everyone in the picture—with the exception of Riz Ahmed’s Ganesh, the President’s scientific voice of reason—wants to wash their hands of it. Until it becomes an unavoidably US problem.
The film, a “parable” about climate change, is completely devoid of subtext—loud, blatant, painting in broad strokes. Its fascistic, capital-driven characters literally lean forward when the topic of conversation turns to money, and scoff at human casualties. Great actors play cartoon versions of real people, which would be fine if the film was willing to match them on an equally exuberant, comical level. But instead it plods along in a series of dull confrontations and even duller conversations, searching for a deeper purpose in its chamber-like set. To respect those who want to go into the movie without spoilers, the most I’ll say is that the film has an element of artifice to it—it may be a matryoshka doll but each one looks identical.
I’m not typically an Iñárritu hater—I loved Birdman’s quirks, found things to like in his lumbering Netflix movie Bardo that nobody saw, and thought Babel was beautiful. But there’s something deeply ironic about a film about mishandled wealth being this expensive and, well, badly handled. Passion projects are important; I’m always glad to see a filmmaker get carte blanche and go crazy. But the results here feel so inconsequential. You can Marmite market it in any way you want, but let’s call a spade a spade: Digger just isn’t very good.
I’ve never really understood the Tinashe thing on a stan level, but her new record Popstar is thrilling.
Dove Ellis, the singer-songwriter who I love and will shout about until I’m blue in the face, released a live EP in support of War Child this week, recorded at a show I saw earlier this year. He’s got a “not of this earth’”voice.
I haven’t seen it yet but I’m hearing the Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity, starring Anne Hathaway and my new bestie Dakota Johnson, is camp and stupid in a good way.
i-D has a few Who Weekly stans on staff, and I’m eagerly awaiting the UK arrival of its creators Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber’s first book, I Want to Be Famous: When Everybody and Nobody Is a Celebrity.
