Digger
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Released 2026
Not good — Clear problems; hard to defend
- Watched
- October 12, 2026
- Format
- Theater
- Platform
- Cinemark
- Location
- Walnut Creek
My take
Some people have said they were immediately turned off and hated this movie and how it made them feel from the very beginning. That wasn't me. I went in totally open to being won over, weird or not. But by the end I was very unsatisfied and left feeling kind of grossed out by the movie. A similar feeling to the other movie I saw this holiday weekend in the theater (Primetime), but for very different reasons. Where Primetime the content itself was very off-putting and disturbing to me and I directed most of those feelings not towards the creators/actors/writers but rather towards the whole ecosystem of reality tv and people that care about reality tv. I found my disgust in this movie directed straight at the creators, all of them (even the actors who may have played there parts well but I'm mad this is what they decided to spend their time on and not something else). The whole movie felt like a privileged progressive brat college freshman's climate alarmist wet dream. It's like the kid's favorite movie was Birdman (Iñaritu's previous film which I just watched a few weeks ago and liked a lot at 4/5), but then he just poo-ed all over it. The satire of the whole movie, instead of heartfelt and serious about actors, art, success, life-after-success for those succeeding and their families (the Birdman themes)...for Digger the satire is just gross and in your face like the character who vomits on the floor. I felt puked on watching this. Another comp I couldn't stop thinking about was the book Yesteryear, which I also just finished with Alejandra a few weeks ago. That book had zero likable characters. Literally they all piss you off and make you wish they'd just disappear off the planet. But the whole point of that book was to satirize everyone, that's why it's ok that you don't like any of the characters. You hate the trad-wife social media influencer bitches, but you also hate the progressive self-righteous Harvard whores just as much (using the explicit language on purpose just to give you a sense of how anger inducing that book was haha). So the experience of reading Yesteryear was still only 3/5, but it was on the positive half because on the whole she nailed her goal of absolutely crucifying all sides and forcing everyone to take a hard look in the mirror, with the ultimate message clearly being moderation in all things is a (the) virtue in public life. Digger did not have that redeeming quality in that it was still very much one sided, in fact would have been better if it was one sided but the play's director is a stand in for the other side, but she doesn't work at all. The only reason I gave this a 1.5 and not a 0.5 is, honestly Cruise is actually freaking fun to watch. The music was good and reminded me at times of White Lotus. I liked Jesse Plemons' character and would have liked to see more of him. The set design and overall vibes were kind of cool and the oversaturated colors didn't bother me. One of my favorite scenes is when the tree falls over Here's one thing this movie has going for it (adding this a few days later). I keep thinking about it. One thing that I've decided is that the most interesting take is that the true theme of the movie is that in the end art doesn't matter.