The trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger promised an over-the top, prosthetic-laden Tom Cruise comedy—a caricature of an oil baron who has to save the world from his own actions. But despite an underwhelming opening at the box office, this sprawling, grotesque satire may be the most relevant film of the year.
Given the way the plot layers, key moments being recontextualized as the story progresses, this movie is difficult to market—or to review—spoiler-free. The broad strokes are that Digger is an oil tycoon whose drilling broke off an iceberg and sent it toward Europe, threatening to kill 100,000 people and displace more than a million. He’s a man who takes painstaking care of his sick cat while watching footage of the wildlife dying as a direct result of his actions. A man purely interested in profit, working alongside the US president, played by John Goodman, to save the world.
There are moments that are directly lifted from real life. It is an obvious, purposely heavy-handed satirization of Bush-era politics as well as the modern US political climate. Before getting into spoiler territory, the movie is also visually striking and ambitious with surreal set designs delivering pointed messages about the world the characters live in, with incredible performances from a star-studded cast.
If you want to go into the movie without any spoilers—and I really think you should—stop here and come back once you’ve watched it.
You expect to see a movie about a wealthy man grappling with a problem he created in the world, but Tom Cruise isn’t actually playing Digger Rockwell. He is playing Curtis Markson, an actor portraying Digger in a satirical play about the events that caused the climate crisis of this world. The play is directed by Hannah (played by Sophie Wilde) and funded by Kenny Rockwell, Digger’s nephew (played by Jesse Plemons).
This context comes in bits and pieces over the course of the movie, and each reveal shines a new light on the film—Goodman’s vulgar, larger-than-life president makes lowbrow jokes for laughs, his team members have minimal reactions to the potential death toll of the climate disaster and overreact when the financial cost is declared. When Europe is struck, the president and his team are eating popcorn and shouting at the screen, telling the victims—of a catastrophe that they created—to run, as though watching a slasher film. It is horrifyingly cartoonish.
The whole movie is a striking caricature, not just of politics but of making art today. The play only happens because Kenny decides to fund it, and while the play has elaborate sets, ample staff, and high-tech production, the theater has intermittent air-conditioning. The audience and director sweat inside while mold grows in the green room, and the world falls apart around this decadent spectacle.