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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

Why does Cameron Diaz dry hump a car in The Counselor?

Age: 41.

Appearance: Ridiculously beautiful, of course. She's a film star.

What's she up to? Usual stuff: appearing in movies, treading the red carpet, having sex with a car.

Eh? Having sex with a car in her new film, The Counselor, which is released this week in the UK.

I'm joining the queue now. It'll probably be short. The film flopped in the US.

But Cameron Diaz has sex with a car! What sort of car is it? Have a guess.

Austin Allegro? No.

Nissan Bluebird? You're not taking this seriously.

Skoda Fabia? Idiot. It's a yellow Ferrari California. Diaz climbs on to the windscreen, and – how do I put this delicately?

Are you blushing? Well, let's just say that she, well, stays on the windscreen until she has an orgasm, while her boyfriend, played by Javier Bardem, watches in terror from the driver's seat.

Did Diaz do the whole scene herself? There are rumours of a stunt double.

Sounds pretty demeaning for them both. Well, apparently – according to one analysis – the scene could be seen as a metaphor of female empowerment. Malkina, the Barbadian-born drug dealer played by Diaz, is demonstrating she doesn't need men. For anything.

Righto. Where was the scene shot? Colombia? Mexico? LA? No. At Stoke Park golf course in Buckinghamshire.

And you say the film failed at the box office in the US? Too dark and amoral, apparently. The 90 seconds of absurd, attention-grabbing sex were not enough to offset the two hours of talky tedium in Cormac McCarthy's screenplay. The script's gems include the aphorism: "The truth has no temperature."

Profound. Doesn't Diaz have form when it comes to dodgy sex scenes? You're thinking of the carwash scene in Bad Teacher, which may well have inspired the mechaphilia in The Counselor. Not to mention the hair gel scene in There's Something About Mary.

Not to be confused with: Dame Judi Dench.

Do say: "Sounds like a turkey – on wheels."

Don't say: "Nice car, want to show me what it can do?"

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