Digger (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2026)

[cdnchris]

Saw this today. Not really sure what I thought of it, to be honest. I really disliked Birdman, but ultimately liked this much more, but that's really not high praise.

What interested me, though, was I feel this may have done better at the box office (not a hit, just less of a bomb) if the advertising just straight up explained what the film was actually about, especially since it's given away so early. I mentioned to my daughter that I saw this and when she asked how it was I ended up just explaining the plot to her, and afterwards she said "That sounds better than the trailer I saw. It looked so stupid!" And it went from her having zero interest in watching it to she'll put in the effort to watch it when it's streaming, even though it was obvious I'm clearly mixed on it.

[Noiretirc]

Ha!

How many bombs were bombs mostly because of the advertising?

[cdnchris]

It would have still flopped I feel; it had 0 chance making its money back. But you look at audience reactions and they're actually not terrible, so it seems most who are seeing it at least think it's okay. Even that one cinema score metric was like a C+, which isn't great but better than I would have anticipated. Other Mommy got a D+.

No direct spoilers ahead, but warning anyway...

Sorry, I know this contributes nothing to the film itself, but I'm just bewildered by the marketing. It was shit, as clearly stated elsewhere, but i really feel this would have gone over better if they were up front about it, or at least hinted. Was there a point to hiding it? It's revealed a few minutes in! Was that a director choice or was it just Warner not having faith in the concept?

[Matt]

I'm surprised they didn't do a second-week marketing switch-up. A new trailer, a resetting of people's expectations like when Marvel revealed that Thunderbolts was actually (somewhat sarcastically) The New Avengers or when Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow had a soft rebrand as Live. Die. Repeat.. But it seems to me that no one had (or was allowed to have) second thoughts about Digger's original marketing campaign, so there was no backup plan. There just seems to be a stink of hubris around the whole project which, whether the movie is "actually" good or "actually bad," is what's most off-putting to people.

[swo17]

I thought they did change it to "see for yourself/make up your own mind"

[Boosmahn]

I saw this on Sunday. I'll risk making myself look foolish by saying Digger, for as much as it seems to be trying, does not arrive at any sort of coherent point.

Spoiler

I don't think that the film's observations on art (Or just satirical art? I can't tell!) as escapism and a means of assigning blame are very applicable to our world because it gives its world no option for hope. A catastrophe has occurred and life sucks a lot more: that's as far as it goes. Because of that, I find it hard to emotionally disagree with the play's director that people need to be able to laugh at the catalyst. The world in Digger seemingly can't be improved, so why not let its inhabitants laugh? In contrast, in our reality, while we are feeling and will continue to feel the consequences of global warming, I believe there is time to avoid a future as bleak as the one Digger portrays. Call me naive, but I believe that. Of course, we need to put resources and effort and even basic belief toward the issues, and that's certainly not being done in the U.S. right now, but we are not hopeless. So while there might be merit to what Iñárritu et al are proposing, it only comes across as vague and cynical.

That being said, Rockwell's mid-film monologue about how the general populace's thirst for convenience is to blame can be applied to our world. But it's hard to take it in earnest because it's delivered through a play that the film says, over and over again, is bad. This urgent message is delivered via a means we are told not to trust, so its effect is dulled. Why? I don't understand the reasoning.

After reading impressions on here, I think the material with Plemons' character is the most worthwhile, or at least the most developed. I'd have preferred if we spent only the first act in "Fossil Fools," with the rest dedicated to the real world, reactions to the play, and the actor/crew characters (especially Cruise's).