This film is for folks who felt that 2021’s Don’t Look Up was insufficiently cynical and depressing.
Director Alejnadro G. Iñárritu’s dark-dark-dark comedy is highlighted by a bravura performance by Tom Cruise, successfully operating leagues out of his usual wheelhouse.
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| Despite his best reasoned, well-researched arguments, U.S. Environmental Safety Chief Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed, left) is unable to persuade oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) that his massive oil extraction operations are dangerous. |
It's also a disconcerting parable about the potentially calamitous results of stubbornly rash behavior by one authoritarian individual, unchecked by compliant government entities. (Sound familiar?)
On top of which, the horrifying “gimmick” revealed, during this saga’s second and third acts, is so clever that it shall not be discussed here.
But consider this analogy: What if Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove had been made 20 years after an actual global nuclear catastrophe, with the intent of allowing the survivors of our forever poisoned planet the cathartic opportunity to witness and jeer the venal, selfish and idiotic behavior of those who had caused the crisis?
With that in mind...
Iñárritu opens on a typical morning in the life of aging, overweight and jowly oil magnate Digger Rockwell (Cruise, all but unrecognized beneath astonishing makeup and prosthetics). Within seconds, we understand that this man is accustomed to always getting his way. On this particular morning, he’s concerned solely with his beloved but very, veryold and ailing cat: little more than bones and tufts of white fur.
The cat looks “off,” and behaves quite strangely. (Hold that thought.)
Iñárritu’s handling of these early scenes — and all that follow — is disorienting, bizarre and off-putting. Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s color palette is muted, bereft of bright colors; everything seems washed-out, as if saturated by a dull brown fog. (Impatient viewers might be inclined to give up. Don’t.)
A visit from world-renowned veterinarian Dr. Berg (Ross Hart) proves as unsatisfying as the insistence — by Emma (Sandra Hüller), Digger’s half-sister and business partner — that mercy should be granted the poor creature.
This decision is set aside when Digger gets some seriously bad news.
Having colluded, not long ago, with the oafish U.S. President Compson (John Goodman, whose blustery resemblance to a certain someone is no accident), Digger erected massive oil extraction operations in Alaska and Greenland ... despite repeated warnings about methane pockets beneath the latter’s surface ice fields. One such pocket has just exploded, dislodging an ice shelf the size of Maryland; ocean currents are sending it — nicknamed Judy — on a collision course toward Norway.
Digger’s emergency meeting with Compson, and his inner circle, also is attended by Environmental Safety Chief Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) and two of his advisors. Their dire warnings — resulting from computer simulations, charts and maps — merely enrage Compson, who can’t be bothered with statistics and projections.
“Just tell me what’ll happen!” he thunders.
Stuttering slightly from fright, Dr. Ganesh explains that such a collision with Norway’s northwestern coast would cause massive tidal waves across the North Sea, flooding and devastating major European and UK cites and communities.
The prudent move, therefore, would be to warn every country likely to be affected.
But since there’s a miniscule possibility that Judy might alternatively drift into the Atlantic Ocean and melt, Compson instead orders — with Digger’s encouragement — an information firewall, much to Dr. Ganesh’s horror. (With great power, comes great deniability.)
The results of that decision are obvious to anybody who has seen this film’s trailer. On top of which, subsequent reckless efforts to “contain” the ever-expanding crisis just make things worse.
Despite this unfolding horror, we can’t help being mesmerized by Cruise’s all-stops-out portrayal of this conniving, cannily persuasive gazillionaire maverick. He fancies himself a gun-toting cowboy visionary, and frequently wields the shovel with which his grandpappy struck his first oil field, back in the day. Digger’s amoral awfulness is sublimely fascinating.
The height of arrogance is reached when Digger insists that he’s the only person who can save humanity from the disaster that he unleashed.
Cruise’s stand-out scene comes during Digger’s impassioned speech before the European Parliament: a lengthy sermon delivered without pause or camera cutaway, which climaxes with a very unnerving truth:
“You want my oil,” Diggers roars, “so that you can continue living your comfortable, unsustainable lives!”
Ahmed, in contrast, is painfully tragic as the increasingly desperate scientist who repeatedly tries to punch through Digger’s barrier of obstinance. (Arguing with Compson would be useless.) Their conversations are a riveting study in persuasion (Ganesh) and deflection (Digger).
Ahme’s truly heartbreaking moment comes when Ganesh ultimately recognizes the futility of his efforts ... and surrenders.
Hüller’s Emma is an intriguing paradox. Although she clearly loathes her half-brother, she also enjoys the lifestyle he provides, and constantly hopes that he’ll champion her own green energy company ... a decision Digger has postponed for years.
Standouts among Compson’s inner circle include Michael Stuhlbarg, wincingly feckless as the useless, toadying U.S. Vice President; and Stephen Wight, in full, blustering evangelical ferocity, as the Rev. Nathaniel Moore, Compson’s spiritual advisor. As the latter repeatedly intones, how can anything go wrong, with God on their side?
Sophie Wilde is equally persuasive, in an intriguing role; Jesse Plemons pops up in the second act, as a mysterious, unsettling individual with secrets of his own.
Production designers Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson delivered herculean work, on everything from Digger’s repulsively furnished mansion, to Compson’s situation room and the interior of Air Force One, and most particularly to the final grim tableau behind the end credits.
Supervising sound editor Richard King and his army of associates also deserve high marks for the relentlessly peculiar, disturbing — and, ultimately, telling — drips, pops, plops and burps that frequently overwhelm composer Cosmo Sheldrake’s equally unsettling score.
If you exit the theater fearing for the future of humanity, that’ll be understandable.
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