Tom’s movie oddity, an enjoyably trashy thriller and a crime drama

The Screen Critic with Jim Schembri

Digger

Wow. What was supposed to be Tom Cruise’s shot at an Oscar has instantly turned into the biggest movie curio of the year.

For Digger, Tom bravely sheds the action-man persona that has made him the biggest film star on Earth to play Digger Rockwell, an ageing oil tycoon whose operation in Greenland now threatens Europe with tsunamis and widespread destruction.

Wearing several kilos of special make-up, Tom – we call him Tom because we love him so – anchors this unusual satire with a gloriously caricatured portrayal, supported by top performances from Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller and especially John Goodman, hamming it up as the US president.

As a farce about climate change and bad politicians, the film is very good – punchy, funny, clever.

Yet the divided critical response and poor box-office opening has promptly deemed it a flop, though this is chiefly because it cost so much – at $US150m, arguably too much – to make.

Still, there’s one thing Digger definitely isn’t – and that’s boring. It’ll likely make up ground when it hits the home market.

Verity

In the enjoyably trashy thriller Verity, a struggling author (Dakota Johnson) is hired to complete a series of novels by a best-selling author (Anne Hathaway) who has suddenly been confined to a wheelchair by an accident, unable to speak or move.

Yet after the husband (Josh Hartnett) invites her into their architect-designed home to do the work, the young author senses something is amiss when she discovers a hidden manuscript.

Proficiently directed and delivering a decent degree of tension along with a few good jolts, the lark is based on yet another book by Colleen Hoover, whose work spawned the hit films It Ends With Us and Reminders of Him.

Sense and Sensibility

Lovers of Jane Austen are going to get exactly what they expect from the latest adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, a perfectly fine, handsomely produced retelling of the Dashwood sisters and their bumpy romantic encounters with various grades of 19th-century men.

Refreshingly old-fashioned, the film is buoyed by very good lead performances from Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor, Esmé Creed-Miles as Marianne and Caitríona Balfe as their mother who worries about their prospects and whether the gents they are romanced by mean what they say.

Very nicely done with plenty of very pretty period decor. Opens 15 October.

The Social Reckoning

While the recent revelations about Facebook’s misdeeds are certainly important, The Social Reckoning turns out to be a bit of a slog as writer/director Aaron Sorkin – who wrote The Social Network, to which this film is a sequel of sorts – struggles to breathe life into what is essentially a two-hour talkfest.

Worried that Facebook is harming its followers for the sake of growing its audience, a nervous data scientist (Mikey Madison) begins leaking information to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), whose work ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize.

As dictatorial Facebook guru Mark Zuckerberg, Jeremy Strong, bearing a very convincing prosthetic schnoz, is very convincing, yet it’s the only interesting performance in an otherwise dry drama.

The Great Arch

For arthouse denizens, The Great Arch offers a ripping French period drama about the design and construction of the famous square monolith as Danish architect Johan Otto von Spreckelsen (Claes Bang) struggles to keep his strange-looking vision from the compromises necessary to get it built. A solid drama set in the splendour of 1980s Paris.

Unabomber

Though you never actually feel sympathy for him, the absorbing crime-drama Unabomber does a very good job revealing the disturbing backstory of Ted Kaczynski, the academic-turned-domestic terrorist whose mail-bomb campaign killed three people and wounded 23 across America between 1978 and 1995.

Agreeing to take part in a psychology experiment, the awkward young Harvard student (Jacob Tremblay, in an excellent performance) is studied by professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe), who becomes increasingly intrigued by his young subject’s view of the world.

Parallel to this is the tale detailing the hunt for the Unabomber as a determined FBI agent (Shailene Woodley) defies internal opposition to her investigation, ultimately tracking down Kaczynski in his little cabin deep in the woods of Montana.

Apart from a clunky opening, this is a very good film. Check it out on Netflix.

For more visit jimschembri.com with updates on X at @jimschembri