SPOILERS are ahead for Digger, now in theaters.
The reactions to Digger may be all over the place, but if there’s one thing most of us can agree on, it’s that we didn’t see that twist coming. Now that this project on the 2026 movie schedule has been out for a while, I need to talk about it and what happened when I asked one cast member about keeping it a secret.
What Audiences Think About Digger’s Big Twist
About 20 minutes into Digger, the audience learns that Tom Cruise isn’t Digger Rockwell. He’s actually an actor named Curtis who is portraying the titular oil tycoon. The events of Digger turn out to be a play that’s in technical rehearsals for most of the movie. I found the twist to be surprising and rather dynamic, but viewers have a lot of thoughts about it. Check out what some people are saying on X:
- “Digger is … fantastic. A twist allows the movie to seesaw between reality & artificiality, spectacle & deconstruction of spectacle, entertaining immersion & political critique. It does so much that it can’t be perfect. But it’s exhilarating. Cruise is terrific!” – @UnderstanderArt
- “Digger lost me at the twist then won me back at the twist on the twist.” – @VantheBrand
- “Digger initial thoughts (no overt spoilers): Iñárritu makes a huge risk by placing an incredibly derailing twist very early into a film which probably would have been well received without it. I believe the second plotline created by the twist eventually weaves itself back” – @meatfan35
- “I think the most interesting thing about Digger is that the initial twist is kind of stupid, but then the secondary twist manages to completely invert the first one and recontextualise the whole film” – @fuzzybluerain
Digger hasn’t been embraced by critics overall, but on the whole, general audiences have been into the satire. Respected filmmakers have also come to its defense, like Ron Howard, who called it “one of those rare ones,” and Guillermo del Toro, who described it as “daring, bold and cinematically complex”.
It seems like one’s reaction to the twist had a big effect on their overall thoughts on the movie. And a lot of reactions above were pleasantly intrigued by Digger actually being about a play. As many of them point out, there’s actually more than one twist in the film, and it really contributed to the ride of it all. Although I was curious: how the heck did they keep this twist a secret?
One Cast Member Told Me Their Take On It
During CinemaBlend’s interviews with the Digger cast, I had to ask about the twist, of course. Here’s what Riz Ahmed, who plays Dr. Nirav Ganesh, said about it when asked about keeping the big secret for all this time:
Well, in a way, I kind of think that there’s a series of twists and turns in this. You know, the whole movie doesn’t pivot on one reveal. There’s a big reveal early on, but there’s a series of them as you continue all the way to the end credits if you think about it. So, yeah, I think it’s one of those movies where it’s like, honestly, the less you know the better.
I know I’m happy I didn’t know going in, but maybe knowing where the film is going ahead of time may enrich their experience. Ahmed is right though; it’s not one twist. There are a few. The first one is the reveal of the movie taking place inside a play, but there’s also the part where we learn that Jesse Plemons’ character, who funded the play, is the nephew of Digger Rockwell.
Then, there’s the one at the very end. This is where we find out the events of Fossil Fuels have not only happened, but have very much impacted the world as a whole.
I know I was pleasantly surprised by the unique framing of the movie, and Ahmed’s thoughts speak to the movie itself being full of surprises rather than leaning on one big one. I’ll be curious to know how the twists sit with audiences as more people check it out.
