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Cameron Diaz’s Bad Day Starts With a Towed Car and Only Gets Worse
Netflix's new trailer for the mom-com "Bad Day" puts Cameron Diaz at the centre of one very long afternoon. The film arrives on the streamer on Dec. 11.
Cameron Diaz has a soccer game to get to, and everything on earth is conspiring against her. That is the whole engine of Bad Day, the Netflix comedy whose new trailer has just landed, and it is a sturdy one. The film reaches the streamer on Dec. 11.
One promise, a lot of obstacles
Netflix calls it a “big-heart mom-com,” and the trailer keeps that promise. Diaz plays a single mother of two daughters who has pinky-promised to show up for her youngest child’s soccer game. Simple enough. Then the car gets towed. The bank account is frozen. A circle of gossiping pilates moms offers passive-aggressive commentary, as they do.
The escalation is where the title earns its keep. Her father needs a lift to a dialysis appointment. She also has to prove she is innocent of bank fraud, a problem that arrives because she accidentally robs a bank. Every errand she tries to run seems to sprout a second, bigger errand. The pinky promise sits at the centre of it all, and the question is whether she can keep it.
Both sides of the Diaz toolkit
It is a tidy fit for an actor who has worked both ends of the genre spectrum. Bad Day blends the action experience of Back in Action and Charlie’s Angels with the heartfelt register of There’s Something About Mary and The Holiday. Chaos first, then heart, in one role. For anyone who has missed her on screen, this reads as a return to the things she does best: physical comedy, quick reactions and a face that can go from panic to tenderness in a single cut.
The supporting bench is deep. Danielle Brooks (Orange Is the New Black) and John Higgins play a pair of police officers, which suggests Diaz’s character will cross paths with the law more than once. Ed O’Neill is her father. Rhenzy Feliz, from The Penguin, plays her friend, and Emma Pearson and Jessica Belkin play her daughters.
Then there is the long tail of comic talent: Mark Duplass, Rob Corddry, Ayden Mayeri, Ben Schwartz, Retta, P.J. Byrne, Sherry Cola, Edi Patterson and Beck Bennett are all in the cast. That is a roll call of people who tend to make an impression in a single scene. A film built on a string of mishaps benefits from a new face turning up at each one.
Behind the camera
Jake Szymanski directs. He previously helmed the Amazon Prime Video series Jury Duty, so a Netflix comedy now sits on his résumé beside a title from a rival platform. Laura Solon wrote the script. Beau Bauman is a producer, Mark Moran and Solon are executive producers, and Jeremy Mittleman is co-producer.
The appeal here is plain and a little old-fashioned in the best way. A star with a résumé that runs from Mary to Charlie’s Angels, a premise you can explain in one breath, a cast stacked with funny people, and a mother whose only goal is to make it to her kid’s game on time. Streaming has plenty of high-concept spectacle. A comedy that stakes everything on a promise to a child has a pleasing clarity.
Mark Dec. 11 for the full day. Clear your own schedule first, since nothing in the trailer suggests Diaz’s will clear itself.
