It’s been some time since a FRIENDSHIP REVIEWS.
Post-2022 it’s all been downhill baby! But hey. Maybe it’s time for the present to catch up with everything and put it back into play. I can’t be everywhere for heaven’s sake. But I can be grateful, and do my best to represent this funny little world I inhabit.
This time around, it was my friends I call MEGALOU (amalgamation) whom I sent along to DIGGER. A new satirical black comedy from Alejandro G. Iñárritu. When my pals sent through the review, I perused it in preparation for FLOURISH. And as I did, the first thing that sprang to mind was 1964’s Dr. Strangelove.
Overall, we thought it was really interesting, but also quite bizarre and weird, definitely deliberately so.”
Yes, do your thing MegaLou. “The whole thing had this exaggerated, almost grotesque caricature feel, which made sense in the context that this was essentially a play inside a movie”. Ahh, the fake-out. You love to see it. Especially when you compare it to Strangelove as I said earlier.
“A lot of characters were loud and over the top, and everything felt kind of dingy and uncomfortable.”
“It did lean heavily into satire about the current American political climate, power and capitalism. The Trump-like president and the whole sycophantic inner circle”. Could this be why the movie has been so tight on revealing anymore than it has? The potential political fallout? We’ll have to see over coming days, as my friends begin to talk about the film’s lead actor.
Tom Cruise was a big surprise in full prosthetics, totally unlike his usual action hero self, and honestly, brilliant.”
Is this perhaps a play for the Oscar once again for Cruise? ‘One more for the road’ and such. “You just bought him as that character. The humour was clunky but in an intentional way, and some of the physical setups were genuinely funny”. If there’s anything Cruise loves in cinema, it’s physicality.
“Visually it felt very deliberate and artistic. The story felt compelling. Though confusing at times, but again, that seemed purposeful”. Which I think is something Iñárritu always delivers with his films. That sense of surrealism intentionally trying to blend into the real. Honestly, my pals have a made a good shout here, and as they wrap up, we hear their final thoughts.
“We came out not totally sure how we felt.
And honestly, that might be part of the point.”
Thank you MegaLou. You have earned yourself another feature in future.
