Tom Cruise's Digger Has A Massive Twist That Ruins The Entire Movie

Contains SPOILERS for "Digger"

Reviewing Alejandro G. Iñárritu's "Digger" is a challenge, not only because of the extreme highs and lows of the film's quality, but because Warner Bros. has decided that the actual premise of "Digger," revealed within the first 30 minutes of the movie, is a spoiler. Now that the film is in theaters, let's talk about the real story.

The twist? Tom Cruise isn't playing the accidental apocalypse-starting oil tycoon Digger Rockwell. He's playing an actor, Curtis Markson, who is playing Digger Rockwell in a play.

Despite what some internet sleuths convinced themselves, the play is not a musical (though there is one moment where background extras chant in unison). The movie would be more entertaining if it was a musical. Instead, the characters in "Digger" are performing a production of "Fossil Fools," a comedy about real in-universe historical events. The real Digger's nephew Kenny (Jesse Plemons) is producing this 25th anniversary production of the "cult classic" comedy. His family wealth is the only explanation for how this production's scale and special effects are so elaborate that they'd make Julie Taymor faint. And even that doesn't cover how such an impossible production is being operated in a post-apocalyptic future where Category 6 hurricanes happen on the regular and robot cops patrol the streets.

The reveal of the play comes about a half-hour into the movie, when a tree outside Digger's window falls over and props workers, appearing giant in the video projection of the miniature outdoor sets, move in to put it back upright. More cool behind-the-scenes looks at the various special effects are used to transition between the fictional play and the "real world." 

As for the framing story, the actor playing Digger isn't feeling good about rehearsals. He's stressed out about family flying in amidst another deadly storm, and is uncomfortable with the broad comedic depiction of a man responsible for mass death. Hannah (Sophie Wilde), the director, argues we have to laugh at tragedy to survive and defends the play as a statement against the generation that killed the world (confusingly, she blames the actor's generation, even though in-universe he'd be at least 25 years younger than the real Digger was during the events depicted). Kenny accepts both sides of the argument — his uncle was both a charismatic monster and a funny weirdo. He emphasizes this play won't make any change, but they should still perform it.

Does Iñárritu think the play is good or bad? Signals are mixed. While the actor's criticisms frame it negatively, the opening night crowd is so enthusiastic that the mood feels self-congratulatory — though stepping out of the theater offers a harsh reminder of satire's ultimate powerlessness.

The play rehearsal framing story is sure to be extremely divisive at best. The themes explored are interesting but also painfully on-the-nose, and turning the movie into a debate about itself ends up detracting from whatever power the story of the "play" could have had. However, two routes could have made this meta layer work.

The first would be to make the play itself more believable as something that could be performed post-apocalypse. This was the direction that the uplifting sci-fi miniseries "Station Eleven," about a traveling Shakespeare company after a deadly pandemic takes, as well as "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play," where campfire remembrances of "The Simpsons" episode "Cape Feare" evolve into bizarre Greek tragedy. This would require sacrificing some spectacle, but the story would feel more honest. If you have to have the bigger-scale effects, then maybe make those less literal, similarly to the play-within-a-play in "Asteroid City."

The other route would be to make it more abstract. Don't stop the play to talk about when sets break or people forget their lines, just let it go on with those bizarre interruptions. Save any rough explanation for an actual twist ending; keeping the same "exiting the theater to hell-world" punchline without forcing us to ponder the logistics. There's one scene where characters scream "Silencio!" that recalls the David Lynch classic "Mulholland Drive" — why can't "Digger" itself trust us with "Mulholland Drive"-level surrealism?