Renee Zellweger shines in Mad About the Boy, the best Bridget Jones since the original

Bridget Jones has lost a husband and gained a younger lover but Renee Zellweger brings heart and humour to Mad About the Boy in a return to form for the rom-com series, writes Leigh Paatsch.

With the welcome return of a rom-com classic, a very unconventional date movie and a towering performance from a former James Bond, there’s plenty of variety at the movies this week.

BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY (M)

Leo Woodall and Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

Director: Michael Morris (To Leslie)

Starring: Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Leo Woodall, Chiwetel Ejiofor

★★★½

Not just a reunion, but a reinvention

So Bridget Jones is back for a fourth time on film.

The only question worth asking is will you be pleased to see her again? The only answer worth hearing is yes.

There are no real deal-breaking asterisks to add to the crowd-pleasing deal sealed here.

If you still rank 2001’s first Bridget Jones outing (Diary) right up there with the best breezy Brit-coms of its era – and it should indeed be mentioned in the same breath as a Love, Actually, a Notting Hill or a Four Weddings and Funeral – then this new effort will not disappoint you in any way.

And if you suffered through the so-so Bridget Jones sequels that followed – 2004’s Edge of Reason was a total clunker, while 2016’s Baby was only a slight improvement – then Mad About the Boy makes everything right again.

This it does by allowing Renee Zellweger the opportunity to drag the title character back from the brink of cutesy caricature for the first time. Zellweger reveals a depth, a dignity and even an underlying sorrow to Bridget Jones we have not encountered before.

Sure, she is still the same old, serenely self-deprecating calamity-magnet we’ve known, loved, and laughed with. But there is more to Bridget Jones now: a result not only of the harsh realities of life catching up with her, but the possibility those same realities may leave her behind.

Renée Zellweger and Chiwetel Ejiofor in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

The pivot point for Bridget’s reinvention comes with the sad news her husband, Mark Darcy (played fleetingly in flashbacks by Colin Firth) is no longer part of her world. He died while on a humanitarian mission to Africa, leaving her to raise their two young children alone.

While the world is expecting Bridget to wallow forevermore as many think all widows should, the woman herself (gradually) has her own ideas for a better future.

These include reclaiming a meaningful career (Bridget’s re-entry into TV production generates plenty of comic material), taking a younger lover (a strapping parks officer named Roxster, played by British heart-throb Leo Woodall), re-establishing old friendships (Hugh Grant’s wily pantsman Daniel Cleaver is now Bridget’s babysitter of choice), and making sure her children remember their late father in all the right ways.

While there are moments where Mad About the Boy makes the odd stumble courtesy of a groan-worthy gag or a cliched turn of events, both its heart and its head remain fixed in the right place throughout.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is in cinemas now

HEART EYES (MA15+)

Heart Eyes is a fun mash-up of slasher and rom-com.

★★★

General release

The world has not been crying out for a movie mixing a straight-up rom-com with a bent-out-of-shape serial-killer thriller. Nevertheless, that is exactly what the world will be getting with this hearts-and-flowers hack-’em up, and chances are most world citizens will like what they see. Particularly those viewers seeking some kind of cynical refuge from the sickly-sweet onslaught of Valentine’s Day.

A bitsy, briskly-paced plot pitches up two opposites-attracted co-workers at a marketing company. Ally (Olivia Holt) and Jay (Mason Gooding) have been paired to complete an urgent overnight job involving some high-end gems. It just so happens that this very same evening marks the return of the notorious Heart Eyes Killer, a masked misanthrope who chooses a different city each year to reduce the number of happy loving couples living within. While Ally and Jay are forced to confront every cliche in the rom-com rule book – this movie’s snarky satirical streak is its best asset – they fail to notice that the dreaded HEK is drawing ominously nearer.

So if the thought of something like Anyone But You fused with a Scream sequel in any way appeals, this is the next movie you should be seeing.

QUEER (MA15+)

Daniel Craig gives a strong central performance in Queer.

★★★

General release

Daniel Craig has become a better and braver actor since downing tools on the James Bond assembly line. His performance out front of Queer, playing a gay American writer in exile down Mexico way in the 1950s, is one of his finest to date.

It’s just something of a shame that the ambitious, beguilingly filmed movie showcasing Craig’s work is unable to maintain the same high standards for very long. It is a matter of coherency, above all else. Director and co-writer Luca Guadagnino (fresh from last year’s tennis triumph Challengers) is simply way too much in love with the William S. Burroughs-authored novel on which is Queer is based. Invariably, Guadagnino defaults to the conflicting enigmas of the book, while failing to make any cinematic sense of what is transpiring.

The viewer has no choice but to hang on to Craig’s virtuoso performance for dear life. The lead character is a broken man stumbling about in a continual state of intoxication, high on a never-ending supply of drinks, drugs and desires of varying strengths.