Everyone Hates ‘Digger.’ It’s the Perfect Climate Movie

Should you see a Looney Tunes–esque satire that stars Tom Cruise successful prosthetics portraying a large caricature of an American oilman, that’s presently connected way to beryllium 1 of the biggest box-office failures of each time?

Absolutely yes—and it’s a movie that rewired my expectations of what a movie astir clime alteration should be. Digger, the critically panned, exorbitantly costly caller movie from Alejandro González Iñárritu, calls into question the intent of creation and adjacent the basal intent of telling the information successful the look of a capitalist machine churning the satellite toward climate disaster. The profoundly uncomfortable movie forces audiences to face what benignant of characters we’re the astir comfy making into climate villains.

(Spoilers ahead—if you person immoderate plans to spot the movie, I truly would promote you to bash truthful archetypal earlier speechmaking on.)

The movie stars Tom Cruise arsenic Digger Rockwell, an lipid billionaire who lone wears cowboy boots and lives successful a mansion covered successful antlers and polar carnivore tegument rugs. At the commencement of the film, 1 of Digger’s oil-drilling platforms accidentally causes a monolithic iceberg to interruption loose, resulting successful a immense methane leak. With catastrophe impending, helium has to alert the president (John Goodman, putting successful a show reminiscent of his champion enactment with the Coen brothers) arsenic the iceberg barrels toward Europe.

The trailers play up the movie arsenic a too-broad-it’s-painful satire of American oilmen and however a Trumpian-inspired religious-right medication would respond to a existent clime disaster. Iñárritu, however, lets america successful connected the concealed early: The farce we’re watching is really a play wrong the movie, being performed successful a theatre with a leaky ceiling that keeps losing power. Tom Cruise is not playing Digger Rockwell, but alternatively an histrion playing Digger Rockwell.

We yet larn that the play, Fossil Fools, depicts events that really happened immoderate decades ago. From past on, you’re alert that each joke, each villainous portrayal of Digger and the president arsenic Really Bad Guys, is for 2 audiences: moviegoers successful 2026 and theatergoers surviving successful a dystopian future.

From the trailers, I’d initially thought that the movie was going to beryllium akin to Adam McKay’s blockbuster Don’t Look Up, a clime satire that drew grounds numbers of viewers connected Netflix erstwhile it aired successful 2021. Don’t Look Up puts scientists racing to pass the nationalist astir an impending asteroid collision and pushing to avert catastrophe against firm and governmental interests that person different plans. McKay, astatine the time, said the film’s intent was to marque “people little tolerant of inaction from their leaders.” If the media—journalists, filmmakers, and the like—could correctly pass the nationalist astir the risks of clime change, the movie (and its accompanying calls to action) posited, we would statesman to spot advancement connected cutting emissions.

Digger, similarly, deals with themes astir clime misinformation. Digger admits helium ignored alerts from his ain institution astir the unfolding situation connected his drilling platforms. Goodman’s president and his furniture determine to deploy a “firewall” that censors retired each mentions of the clime situation (including the operation “Al Gore”) to power the communicative of what’s happening.