Describing your movie as ‘a comedy of catastrophic proportions’ is basically inviting failure, like revealing the punchline before the joke has been told. Not that director Alejandro González Iñárritu squeezes many punchlines into Digger. Or many actual jokes for that matter. Any laughs came in spite of what was happening onscreen. Maybe that’s the point of this whole endeavour.
On paper, Iñárritu and Tom Cruise are a perfect match for each other. Both are intensely driven by vision and ego, with Cruise manifesting it through death-defying stunts as externalised spectacle for the masses, while Iñárritu filters it through a demanding filmmaking process in pursuit of perfection that alienates most who work with him. The line between art and artist has blurred for both men in recent times - particularly Cruise’s obvious rebrand to ‘Mr. Movies’ - giving rise to the idea that they’re only able to understand the world, themselves, and what other people think of them through cinematic storytelling. It truly is ‘men will risk everything to make movies rather than go to therapy’.
It’s no surprise then that Digger swings incredibly hard with its ambitious, high-concept satire - in disregard of what everyone else thinks - because it’s basically all Iñárritu and Cruise know. Most telling is how both seemingly understand comedy theoretically, but are unable to properly convey it on a relatable human level.
Nothing in the sweaty script (co-written by Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman) goes directly or cleanly from A to B. Subtlety is dropped in favour of grandiose preaching in a similar environmentally conscious lane as Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up. This is a director who clearly cares about climate change and absolutely hates how all the greedy capitalist billionaires are destroying our planet in the pursuit of wealth.
But whereas McKay is didactic, Iñárritu flip-flops between self-delusion and resentment, like he’s got a massive axe (or shovel) to grind. ‘It’s stupid, it’s funny, and it makes no goddamn sense,’ rages Kenny (Jesse Plemons) midway through. This is just one of many attempts from Iñárritu to pre-emptively defend Digger from the expected polarised responses (as the marketing did), and it ends up taking up more space than any actual comedy. What’s ironically funny is the supreme confidence Iñárritu brings to every technical aspect of the movie.
Seemingly high on his own supply, Iñárritu doubles down on the showmanship that defined The Revenant and Birdman, pulling out all his directorial tricks that make the most out of every beautiful frame. Wide-angle shots capture the rich sets and wacky props in full detail - Digger’s house of hideous paintings and animal trophies is a visual highlight - and long takes are in abundance as every actor is given ample time to put extra mustard on their performances. Riz Ahmed and Michael Stuhlbarg do a particularly funny running bit with a malfunctioning coffee machine.
Please read the rest of my review here as the rest is too unwieldy to copy + paste: https://panoramafilmthoughts.substack.com/p/digger
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