Cameron Diaz makes broad comedy feel less laboured, bringing warmth to films busy finding new ways to misbehave. We value that ease; she deserves as much room to be ridiculous as the men around her.
Fi1m perspective
In There's Something About Mary (1998), Cameron Diaz keeps Mary Jensen worth watching while the men around her make a complicated business of wanting her. Her light comic manner stops their efforts from weighing down the film. We warmed to Mary because Diaz remains relaxed and funny amid all that frantic male attention. It is a good comic performance in a part that ought to have offered her more.
The screenplay, by Ed Decter, John J. Strauss and the Farrellys, needs Mary to be desirable enough to keep everyone pursuing her. It gives her less room to be unreasonable, ridiculous or difficult herself. Diaz keeps us interested even when the writing concentrates on the suitors, but we begin to wish some of their freedom to misbehave had been hers. The familiar casting of Diaz as the woman everyone wants makes particular sense here, and its limitations are particularly clear.
She made her debut opposite Jim Carrey in The Mask (1994), before There's Something About Mary established her as a comedy lead. With Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1999), she took a useful turn away from being agreeable. As the dowdy, neurotic Lotte Schwartz, she altered her physical and vocal manner, and that awkwardness suits her. Voicing Princess Fiona in Shrek (2001) gave her another use for her comic ability. The voice work helps hold the animated series together.
She is less persuasive when the effort becomes audible: the stridency of Annie (2014) is a warning against pushing her comic manner too hard. That film preceded her retirement; she returned in Back in Action (2025), again alongside Jamie Foxx. We would welcome scripts that let her cause more of the trouble. Start with There's Something About Mary if broad comedy is your inclination, and allow for a screenplay that gives her admirers too much of her time.
Biography
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress. Born on 30 August 1972 in San Diego, California, she was raised in Long Beach and signed a modelling contract with Elite Model Management while in high school.
Diaz made her film debut in The Mask (1994). She starred as Mary Jensen in the Farrelly brothers' comedy There's Something About Mary (1998) and as Lotte Schwartz in Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich (1999).
She voiced Princess Fiona in the Shrek film series (2001–2010) and appeared in films including Gangs of New York (2002) and The Holiday (2006). Diaz has received nominations for a British Academy Film Award and four Golden Globe Awards.
