By George & Josh Bate
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Digger
Ahead of its highly anticipated release this week, speculation on social media has been rampant about a massive twist in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new Tom Cruise-led satire Digger. Before our screening, on-screen text asked audiences to remain tight lipped about what transpires in the movie in order to preserve this key element, which is not revealed in any existing promotional materials.
In this article, we’re going to breakdown what this mysterious element of Digger is and how it plays out in the film.
For those unfamiliar, Digger follows Tom Cruise as Digger Rockwell, the world’s wealthiest man and titan of industry with prominent oil investments around the world. When his company accidentally causes an ecological disaster that threatens to displace and kill millions of people, Digger scrambles to find a way out of a seemingly impossible dilemma as he faces pressure from U.S. President Compson (John Goodman), his sister Emma (Sandra Hüller), and his company’s top scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed).
To get more specific, Digger Rockwell’s oil drilling company accidentally triggers a methane leak and a subsequent explosion that causes a massive chunk of the ice shelf in Greenland to break off and speed toward Europe.
The early parts of the film follows Digger as he completely dismisses the impending disaster. Instead, he is obsessed with the health of his decaying, elderly pet cat Maggie, who is withering away before his eyes.
Very quickly, however, Digger realizes how serious the situation is as he is confronted by environmental scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), U.S. President Compson (John Goodman), and a range of high-ranking advisors, who all gather at Digger’s home. After a contentious meeting between the group about what to do about the floating piece of ice and whether it is advisable to bomb it into thousands of tinier pieces, Digger and Compson retreat to a secluded room in the home, which Digger describes as his mother’s old hiding place.
While separated from the others, Compson informs Digger that he is dying. More specifically, he has cancer of the ass (yes, that’s how Goodman’s character puts it). Digger, however, already knows of Compson’s ailment.
As the two look out of the window of the room upon a picturesque field with beautiful trees, something unusual occurs that changes the entire trajectory of the film. Suddenly, a tree in the foreground randomly falls onto its side, after which a massive human hand comes through the grass and tries to stand the tree back up again. This is followed by the man coming through the floor entirely as other people begin to emerge in the background.
At this point, Digger reveals its big twist. Up until this point, the events that have unfolded are a rehearsal for a play about Digger Rockwell. Tom Cruise is not really Digger Rockwell, but actually Curtis Markson, a well-respected actor taking on the lead role of an elaborate stage production.
From this point onward, Digger oscillates back-and-forth between scenes in the play involving Digger and scenes of Curtis and the other performers as they prepare for opening night of the show. It’s a bit like Don’t Look Up meets Birdman.
But the film packs another twist into its final stretch. As Curtis and company rehearse a pivotal scene of the play, Curtis grows frustrated with the comedic approach to his character. This causes him to clash with Hannah (Sophie Wilde), the director of the play, which is revealed to be named Fossil Fools. During their argument, it is revealed that Digger Rockwell was a real person and that the events that the play is covering actually transpired approximately 30 years prior. The play Fossil Fools is a cult classic that has been running for two decades.
Interrupting the clash from the shadows of the crowd is Kenny (Jesse Plemons), a mysterious producer figure who looms quietly in the background of the film. Kenny approaches Curtis and Hannah and reveals himself to be Kenny Rockwell, the nephew of Digger Rockwell and the son of Emma Rockwell (Sandra Hüller). Kenny, who somehow has held onto immense wealth despite the destruction his uncle brought into the world, has funding an ambitious new stage adaptation of Fossil Fools and is heavily invested in seeing the production come to fruition.
In calming Curtis and Hannah down, Kenny explains that both of their perspectives are true. On the one hand, the real Digger Rockwell was composed, intelligent, and driven, all of which Curtis wants to ensure come across to the audience. But Digger Rockwell was also bizarre, eccentric, and caused a chain of events so devastating one can’t help but laugh and find the absurdity amongst it all. Here, Kenny is speaking directly to the audience of Iñárritu’s film about the current state of the world. There is both great tragedy and great absurdist comedy seeing the direction the world is heading in.
After the opening night performance of the play, the audience’s cheers are disrupted by an announcement that outside is currently experiencing a “Level 4” air quality, which necessitates people wear gas masks. As the audience exits the theater wearing these masks, the film offers a glimpse at what the world looks like in the aftermath of the environmental catastrophe caused by Digger Rockwell and his company. The sea level is high, armed soldiers and robots police the streets, everything is gray, and the world looks more akin to a post-apocalytpic landscape than it does our real world.
As the film concludes, Iñárritu leaves viewers with a biting and ultimately sobering satire of American idiocy and overconfidence to ponder over. All of this is encapsulated by Jesse Plemmons’ monologue near the end of the film, which reflects Iñárritu’s purpose to elicit fear and laughs, in equal measure, from the declining state of our world.
Digger is in theaters October 2, 2026.