It may be a quarter of a century since we first became entangled in Bridget Jones’ (Renée Zellweger) convoluted love life with Messrs Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) but, judging by last weekend’s record-breaking box office performance, we’re far from tired of this hapless heroine.
In the fourth (and last?) chapter of the film franchise - Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy – we find Bridget in the kitchen of her Hampstead townhouse where chaos reigns supreme. Son Billy is figuratively glued to a device, daughter Mabel is literally glued to strings of play slime, a saucepan of dry spaghetti is in flames, and Bridget is struggling into a dress declaring “bloody zip manufacturers should be cancelled”.
We soon learn that it’s four years to the day since her QC husband Mark - father to both children - was killed in an explosion on a humanitarian mission in Sudan. Mired in grief, she’d abandoned her TV producer career, become a “born-again virgin” and devoted herself entirely to bringing up her children as best a bumbling Bridget can – with occasional perfectly-timed apparitional appearances from Mark.
Inspired by the words of her ailing father (Jim Broadbent) - “promise me you’ll live Bridget… it’s time to live” – plus a not-so gentle nudge from her faithful gynaecologist (Emma Thompson returns as the acid-tongued Dr Rawlings) - Bridget asks her boss for her job back and, with a little unsolicited help from friend Miranda (Sarah Solemani), joins Tinder to dip a toe into the world of modern dating.
It quickly comes down to a duel between 29-year-old park ranger Roxster (Leo Woodall, The White Lotus) who is a dab hand at lifesaving drowning dogs, and Billy’s sexy-but-strict science teacher, the whistle-toting piano-playing Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave) who reveals his softer side (and a surprise sixpack) on a school trip. That’s the rom covered. What about the com.
There is laughter. Plenty of it. Scenes involving Bridget’s purchase of a ‘representative selection’ of condoms, a dodgy Venezuelan lip serum, and a scattering of sexual health leaflets earn loud guffaws. While a mic’d up Bridget announcing her “full night of utterly mind-blowing sex with a tree-rescuing rubbish expert Adonis” to an unsuspecting live TV audience was reassuringly Bridget Jones’s Diary.
There are also tears. Bring the Kleenex. You’ll certainly need them when Bridget, Billy and Mabel ‘post’ letters to Daddy in the sky.
Perhaps the most soul-stirring relationship of all is the platonic love that has blossomed between Bridget and a wrinkly, grey, but still oh-so-dashing Daniel. Although he remains a level-ten womaniser with questionable principles (Bridget describes it as “a lifelong dedication to total fuckwittage”), he’s visibly softened without losing his hysterically sharp humour. There are many touching moments, not least when he’s reflecting on what his life might have been in a hospital gown or endearingly babysitting the children (whilst teaching them how to make his signature Dirty B*tch cocktail). Bridget Jones. Still loveable, still a mess, and still able to rake in the box office big bucks. Maybe there’s another book in Helen Fielding after all.
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