From strength to strength

DIAZ. Keeps surprising viewers with new prisms to her ever-unfolding talent

Now that Cameron Diaz is in her 40s, signs of age and the inexorable downpull of the law of gravity are starting to show, giving her loyal fans reason to worry that her career may be entering its “twilight zone.”

If you ask us, however, they can relax, because the veteran star’s very judicious choice of roles in the past couple of years has resulted in her enjoying renewed commercial and critical success.

Yes, the age and laugh lines may be showing, but her more venturesome and edgier screen portrayals of late have enabled Diaz to keep surprising viewers with new prisms to her ever-unfolding talent.

For instance, in her latest film, “The Other Woman,” Diaz does nothing less than turn the old cliché of the machinating mistress and home-wrecker upside-down—and inside out!

Yes, Cameron’s character, Carly, has an affair with a married man, Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), but she finds out about his marital status only after she meets his wife, Kate (Leslie Mann).

After the usual recriminations, their inimical relationship takes a surprising turn when they realize that the handsome philanderer they love has been deceiving both of them, so neither of them is the culprit in this extramarital mess.

Realization

This realization is further bolstered when they catch Mark on a sexy beach rendezvous with a third victim, the even younger and sexier Amber (Kate Upton)! This proves beyond all doubt that Mark, the “juggler-philanderer,” is beyond redemption, so his three victims conspire to teach him a lesson he’ll never forget!

This is Woman Power taken to a higher and bracingly empowering level, and this big  plot twist is the movie’s major thematic strength.

It shows how other female victims of serial philanderers can get the justice (and psychic satisfaction) they need by seeing themselves not as rivals, but as fellow combatants on the battlefield of betrayed love—and lechery!

Unfortunately, after this central point is sizzlingly made, the film fritters away its key advantage by staging the ladies’ revenge in too episodic and predictable a manner. Yes, the vengeful ploys they think up are funny, but viewers can see them coming a mile away, so the key comedic element of surprise is blunted.

It’s a good thing that the film’s stellar ensemble is unusually gifted, so their feisty performances keep the movie interesting—even as it ends up running repetitive thematic circles around itself.

Cameron paces the stellar cast with her pithily combative portrayal of a “streetwise” woman scorned. Her hurt and righteous anger keep the “revenge” action hot and heaving, and poor Mark is a goner long before he even suspects that he and his “macho” moxie will soon be reduced to whimpering, pleading pools of protoplasm!

Even more impressively, the relatively lesser known Leslie Mann is prodigiously able to keep up with Cameron’s feisty, “performance-level” act. The other stars also have their “moments,” so the movie serves as an example of “sensible” performance at its synergistic, copacetic best!