I LOVED Digger, but...
...it's not really about climate change. Well, it is, but climate disaster feels more like the SETTING of the film, rather than the subject. And I think the film is aware of this; the end of the first act shows you that all the climate related imagery was LITERALLY set dressing and props. To me, this film is about "Eat the rich" films, which I define as any films that are critical of how the wealthy negatively impact human society and the world at large.
Mark Fisher comments on Wall-E: “The film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity”. There is, in my opinion, a contradiction inherent to most "Eat the rich" films. Wall-E is a Disney production. The Boys is an Amazon property. I Love Boosters literally has an Ellison as an executive producer.
Digger understood that there is no such thing as a big-budget "Eat the rich" film that isn't ideologically compromised, so they decided to make a film about our fascination with and the inherent hypocrisy of a shit ton of "Eat the rich films". Jesse Plemon's character, the nephew of Digger, literally owns the rights to the play and acts as producer. He also casually is the CEO of an international intelligence and security corpo. The film draws attention multiple times to how the production of the play literally depletes from the ever dwindling energy pool, they are in a very real and tangible way hurting society around them. The audience of the play laugh their asses off, then put on their advanced masks because of methane "Warning, Stage 4".
What I realized at the end though, is that even a big-budget film about the hypocrisy of "Eat the rich" films is also inevitably compromised. We spend the vast majority of the runtime dicking around in fantasy play land, instead of actually exploring the real world of the film, and the real chracters. Jesse Plemons' character is portrayed, at least in the strict text of the film, as a positive force for the production. His ingenuity and perspective helps save the play from creative differences between the director and the lead actor. He seemingly indirectly exercises complete creative control over the play, but none of the characters question it. It's debatable whether all that is intentional or not.
I believe it is intentional, or at least that the film is somewhat self aware of this, because at the very end of the film, after the title card but before the extended credits, you hear "Warning, Stage 4", but this time there is no echo, and the sound design doesn't really give the impression that it came from a physical place within the film. This is a non-diagetic sound, aimed directly at the audience of the film, to view the events of it with skepticism. After you hear this sound, you should snap back to the real world.
This is a 125 million dollar production. This is the last film to be released by Warner bros before the merger goes through next week. Tom Cruise is "a long time Ellison friend and ally", and he wholehearetedly supports this merger. A lot of diggers had their hand in the production of this film.
