The terrible Cameron Diaz movie storming the Netflix charts
More than a decade after she announced her retirement from acting, Cameron Diaz begins her comeback with a Netflix original movie, which makes it fitting that one of her final films, before she bid farewell to Hollywood, is flying high as one of the streaming service’s most popular.
Her upcoming action comedy with Jamie Foxx has been a long time coming. The aptly named Back in Action was announced in 2022, and production wrapped in April of the following year. However, the caper won’t be released until January 2025.
It would appear that Diaz has been bitten by the acting bug for a second time, though, with the star reprising her role as Fiona in the fifth Shrek movie that’s tentatively scheduled for 2026, while she’ll also appear alongside Keanu Reeves in Jonah Hill’s next directorial effort, Outcome.
Diaz was one of the biggest stars in the business before she bowed out, even if her final contributions to cinema before retreating from the spotlight left a lot to be desired. Sex Tape, Annie, and The Other Woman all arrived within months of each other in 2014, and her work was so well-received that her entire filmography for the year earned her a Golden Raspberry Award for ‘Worst Actress’.
It’s the latter that Netflix subscribers have been drawn to in their numbers, with The Other Woman the seventh most-watched feature among users in the United Kingdom. It was a big hit at the time, earning close to $200 million at the global box office, but director Nick Cassavetes’ rom-com took a pounding from critics.
Diaz plays a New York City lawyer who breaks her own relationship rules when she falls for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s debonair businessman, only to discover that he’s secretly married. Leslie Mann’s housewife is furious at her husband’s deception, partnering with Diaz’s Carly Whitten to formulate a plan for revenge.
However, another spanner in the works arises when it turns out he’s also seeing Kate Upton’s swimsuit model, with the three uniting against their common enemy. Who is the other woman in The Other Woman? Is it one, two, or all three of the female leads? In reality, who cares, because it’s rom-com dreck at its most formulaic.
It’s a light and fluffy slice of undemanding entertainment at the end of the day, and the combination of appealing stars and easy watching is often more than enough for legacy titles to crack Netflix’s top ten.