Digger

I think I loved it?

Burning down the house!

I saw this in a small, but surprisingly packed, 60-seat cinema full of people who were on this film’s wavelength – and lo and behold, I was on the wave too. For such a bleak subject, there’s a streak of optimism that really won me over. That, and the utter theatricality of the performances that are so big you can’t help but get swept up in the whole thing.

The acting is definitely the highlight for me. Tom Cruise is swinging for the fences and beyond in his most non-Ethan Hunt/Maverick role in decades, and…he lands a home run. He’s willing to be unlikable and vulnerable and it only benefits him. The prosthetics become invisible after a few minutes, as Cruise isn’t moving or carrying himself like his previous characters. His central, ten-minute monologue is a blistering display of “just a reminder, I’m also a phenomenal actor!” He can be Digger Rockwell, he can hang off a plane, the man really can do everything. The other MVP is easily Riz Ahmed – with (I’m guessing) fifteen minutes of screentime, he steals every scene. Extremely drunk Riz Ahmed and extremely loud Tom Cruise are the comedy duo I never saw coming. Hope this kicks his career into another gear, because he’s been quietly brilliant for years. John Goodman as the buffoonish President Compson is hilarious – a centrepiece scene (also involving drunk Riz Ahmed) had the whole theatre in stitches.

What moved me the most was that despite all the apocalyptic, climate crisis, existential despair…this film has something optimistic within it. The big reveal is that the whole story is actually within a story, and that all this is one big satire of the idiots who broke the world. Even despite the darkness, the stage play is cathartic – if we can’t laugh, then we’ll cry so we might as well laugh. The film’s most important scene at the roughly ~90-minute mark (you’ll know it when you see it) sums up all of this – see it for yourself.

I reckon in ten years we’re all gonna love this.