Early Oscar Buzz for ‘Digger’ Was All About Tom Cruise — but Its Best Chances May Lie Elsewhere

Some elements of Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Digger" will undeniably win favor with Oscar voters. And then there is Tom Cruise's performance.

As the first reactions to “Digger” suggest, Tom Cruise’s latest film — a big budget original satire co-written and directed by four-time Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu — is bound to split audiences. On the awards front, that could work to its benefit.

Iñárritu is a filmmaker that Academy members are deeply familiar with, as every single one of his films has been nominated for at least one Oscar, including Best Picture winner “Birdman.” He has enough caché to entice voters into seeing and judging “Digger” for themselves, despite critics’ reviews leaning negative.

Despite early chatter about Cruise’s work here, the parts of the film that are undeniable and that make it a contender for a Best Picture nom — despite what general audiences may think — are the crafts.

Three-time Best Cinematography Oscar winner (and recent Taylor Swift collaborator) Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki shows a real evolution from the “all-in-one-take” technique that his previous collaboration with Iñárritu is best known for. Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner keeps audiences on the edge of their seat with the film’s unpredictable scale and peculiar surroundings.

And recent Best Casting Oscar nominee Francine Maisler excels at getting viewers to exclaim “They’re in this too?!” Much has already been made of John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, and Riz Ahmed co-starring in the film, but Oscar nominee Jesse Plemons and recent “Talk to Me” breakout Sophie Wilde also pop in for brief moments to shine.

But the main challenge in determining how far the film can go on Oscar nominations morning is still Cruise. Audiences can enjoy the film as a “big swing,” but still take issue with his performance. Will they feel like they’ve seen a truly go-for-broke performance? Funnily enough, his memorable cameo as Les Grossman in “Tropic Thunder” was a greater transformation, from his likeness being harder to read at first to the movie star feeling much looser with the comedy.

In “Digger,” Cruise still feels like Cruise.

During a recent appearance on the “New Heights” podcast, he boasted about how he whipped the film’s prosthetic makeup crew — led by two-time Best Hair and Makeup Oscar winner Kazu Hiro — into shape, so that it only took them an hour to get him in and out the makeup chair. This may not be received in the way he intended, and it’s easy to imagine that other members of the Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Branch would not take kindly to being so rushed or bossed.

Generally speaking, Academy members have not been too eager to award the Oscar to the nominee who wants it the most. We just saw Timothée Chalamet lose Best Actor right near the finish line, after a huge, innovative, polarizing press run that secured him the nomination. It happened to be in the same season, during which Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ran a campaign built on signaling that he was ready to move away from empty blockbusters.

The lone actor from an Iñárritu movie to finally win an Oscar for their performance was Leonardo DiCaprio for “The Revenant,” when one of the biggest movie stars in the world finally got their “overdue” Oscar. But that was within the context of him having an all-time run of Oscar-nominated hits, like “Inception,” “Django Unchained,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Cruise is in a weaker spot coming off of two “Mission: Impossible” movies that nearly sank the franchise. Had “Digger” come in the afterglow of his Best Picture nominee “Top Gun: Maverick,” it would be a much different story. Now he needs it more.

His saving grace will be that “Digger” is a film that actors in particular will find really fascinating, and Cruise does seem willing to engage with that audience. Other contenders, like Robert Pattinson in “Primetime” or Sebastian Stan in “Fjord,” are not as likely to reach as wide a crowd of voters. Cruise is absolutely not at the top of the pack, as other stars who have yet to win an Oscar for their acting, like John Malkovich, Matt Damon, and Ryan Gosling, are in contending films that have broader appeal. Campaigning to open the film is just the beginning for Cruise.

Though many suspected Goodman would be the most likely Best Supporting Actor contender going into “Digger,” it’s Ahmed who has the most richly layered part, with Plemons as the ultimate scene-stealer. Hüller is probably the most short-changed, but she is already suffering from success, with three other performances this year that could viably earn her Oscar nominations. It’s probably of some relief to let this one go.

And, despite the rollercoaster ride Iñárritu has had with the Academy’s Music branch — from his film “Babel” earning composer Gustavo Santaolalla a Best Original Score Oscar, to both “Birdman” and “The Revenant” being deemed ineligible for that same category — the director once again proves he has a good ear for music, with the work of newcomer Cosmo Sheldrake being another highlight of “Digger.” He can make it in, too.