Can anyone really top Mr Darcy? My thoughts on the new Bridget Jones flick

This newest age gap on-screen romance has the world talking - but it’s not at all what we expected.

** Hold onto your granny pants, this article contains spoilers. **

Before we even judge the final movie in the Bridget Jones franchise, it goes without saying that mad props must be given for even getting here in the first place.

After all, do any other female-led, romance-based films ever get to be tetralogies? (That means four films in a row, and yes I had to Google that, too.)

Aside from the usual action heroes or sci-fi adventures, rom-coms are either one and done or if we’re lucky, get a predictable sequel that’s barely worth making it off the couch to the cinema for.

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Fans have waited almost 10 years for Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy to be released. Image: Universal Pictures

Bridget returns...

So just like we do with the iconic character of Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), who gives us second-hand embarrassment with her constantly fumbling tumble through life, this fourth installment gets a pass for being a bit of a chaotic mess at times, but something that we definitely do not regret welcoming into our minds and hearts, because it’s a damned cinematic miracle that’s it’s even here in the first place after nine long years since the last film - and 24 years since the first one.

And yes, all those favourite familiar faces are back - including Hugh Grant (who skipped Bridget Joneses’ Baby), who arguably has the best lines of the film as the cad with a soft spot, Daniel Cleaver. 

But let’s face it, what we’re really here to talk about is whether Bridget’s new squeezes match up to Mr. Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). We’ll get to that in a jiffy.

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Now a single mum, still hilariously chaotic 

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy sees our heroine in mama bear mode, struggling to keep her s*it together for her two kids, Billy and Mabel, four years after their lawyer father and love of her life, Mark Darcy, was killed on a humanitarian mission.

She’s contemplating getting back into her old job as a TV producer while struggling with the guilt of not being anything and everything for her kids, who are grieving their dad.

Emma Thompson, returns as Bridget’s gynecologist, Dr. Rawlings, who has a bedside manner that’s equal parts terrible and funny, but manages to knock some sense into our leading lady right when she needs it the most.

Even more than her granny pants, cooking fails and drunken verbal diarrhoea of previous films, Bridget is ever so relatable at 51 as a widowed mum-of-two, rocking up to her kids’ posh school in her pyjamas surrounded by yummy mummies, offering a half eaten pack of rice crackers and hummus for a fundraiser, and giving two f*cks about the state of her bird’s nest-like head of hair. We LOVE her to bits. 

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The leading men and that age gap

We won’t give all the fun away, but Bridget’s meet-cutes with her leading men - yes, there are two once again - happen just as she gets herself into a very awkward situation for Billy and Mabel, which makes the impending romances all the more endearing.

The hunks in Bridget’s life this time are 29-year-old park warden, Roxter (Leo Woodall) and the school science teacher, Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor). They couldn’t be more different, and it’s vicariously fun seeing Bridget get her sexy mojo back after four years without ‘getting laid’ (her friend’s words, not mine!). 

Roxter is undeniably charming and swoony in his adoration for Bridget in their much-talked-about age-gap, Tinder-style romance, not to mention does an, ahem, very satisfying job in recreating Colin Firth’s famous wet shirt scene in Pride and Prejudice. But do we feel his character is worthy of the title, ‘Mad About the Boy’?

For this viewer, it’s a disappointing ‘no’. And after seeing the film, we’re left confused as to why it (and the book it was modelled on) was called that in the first place, given the story arc. We fell much harder for Woodall in Netflix's One Day, where he’s given a far more meaty script to work with.

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Mr. Wallaker’s entrance is where things start to feel comfortably familiar, because his aloofness and opposites-attract banter with Bridget is reminiscent of her Mark Darcy relationship.

Did we swoon like when Mr. Darcy made his iconic confession: “I like you very much. Just as you are.” Afraid not, but the script and the actor make a very gallant effort to bring all the same kind of feels. Truth be told, Colin Firth sets an impossibly high standard for anyone coming after him because he’s the ultimate green flag we root for despite his glaring imperfections.

At the end of the day, while the film is about Bridget and all the various facets of her life in London, it overwhelmingly feels like a sentimental love letter to Mr. Darcy - and given it’s based on Helen Fielding’s book about picking up the pieces after the loss of the father of her children - that’s no surprise. Laughs were had, a few tears shed and new ways to weave a curse word into a sentence were learned. 

And with that, Bridget’s journey has seemingly all but ended on the big screen. But the best part is we can relive her best - and hilariously worst - moments anytime we want. Thanks to the oh so marvellous film credits - which you absolutely must hang back for - the nostalgia remains as sweet as a bright blue cocktail.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, rated M, is in cinemas now.

Originally published as Can anyone really top Mr Darcy? My thoughts on the new Bridget Jones flick