Spoiler alert: ‘Digger’

Spoiler Alert: The following review reveals plot information. Read only if you have seen “Digger”

In “Digger,” the perpetually engaging Alejandro G. Iñárritu looks high and low for the recall code to his visually resplendent doomsday device. Anchored by a tour de force comic workout from Tom Cruise, the ambitious film unleashes torrents of dialogue and speechifying cranked to the max. The screenplay, which Iñárritu co-wrote with Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Nicolás Giacobone, lacks the more nimble touch of Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George, but it takes real chutzpah to knowingly approach the altar of “Dr. Strangelove.” Opening weekend box office returns point to stormy financial prospects, but love it or lump it, “Digger” should be experienced on the biggest screen available. 

Many critics have expressed sentiments tagging the movie as a “big swing,” with some making the case that Iñárritu misses and others saying he connects. In general, my own impression was mostly positive, although I don’t think the filmmaker equals or surpasses his career highs. “Digger” feels more like a mashup of “Birdman” and “Bardo” than it resembles the intertwining network narratives of “Amores perros,” “21 Grams” and “Babel,” which is not necessarily a negative critique. The filmmaker’s “Death Trilogy” opened the gates to the more subjective and experiential tactility of “Biutiful” and “The Revenant” and I respect the many ways in which Iñárritu, now 63, continues to play with form.

“Digger” is certainly Iñárritu’s most overtly comic feature, though its grim laughs are of the jet black variety. The marketing campaign, from first teaser to red band trailer to the latest ads contrasting positive international reviews with negative domestic ones, has leaned heavily into themes of environmental catastrophe at the hands of our most pitiless oligarchs. It is impossible not to read the film against the backdrop of America’s daily hellscape. We seem to rush headlong toward the same kind of dystopian nightmare caused by petroleum baron Digger Rockwell and the cruel coterie of leaders eager to protect their own interests and preserve their own safety at the expense of the powerless poors ground under the heel of greed and mendacity. 

The revelation that Cruise’s potbellied industrialist is but a theatrical conceit — Digger is merely being portrayed by an actor named Curtis Markson in the silver anniversary revival of the climate change stage satire “Fossil Fools” — rewires our understanding of the shenanigans even as it accounts for the otherworldly lighting and production design so stunningly photographed by the supreme Emmanuel Lubezki. Iñárritu, clearly inspired by the nested metanarratives and diorama stylization more successfully explored by the likes of Charlie Kaufman, Roy Andersson and Wes Anderson, hopes that we will share Markson’s ethical concerns about using misery and suffering as entertainment. 

“Asteroid City” masterfully balanced presentational artifice and the emotions of its fictional inhabitants. “Digger” holds back in this regard, and the film’s outright refusal to embrace character-deepening storylines mushrooms into its greatest post-reveal liability. Viewers eager to discover anything human about the troupe populated by John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Riz Ahmed and Michael Stuhlbarg are left wanting. The tactic, deliberate though it may be, is particularly vexing when it comes to the use (or misuse) of Jesse Plemons, whose mysterious presence at the rehearsal ends up signifying little to nothing. In place of heart and soul, Iñárritu doubles down on the sad absurdity of America’s wretched current timeline, a confident decision that nevertheless makes “Digger” a real challenge to dig.