By Sandra Hall
BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY ★★★ ½
(M) 125 minutes
After nine years, Bridget Jones is back. Whether she should be is a matter of contention since the fourth instalment of this, the most blithe of British romcoms, begins in the aftermath of tragedy.
Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy, Bridget’s husband and the love of her life, has been dead for four years and she is still grieving.
“The smug marrieds” of her acquaintance are being even more condescending than they were when she was a singleton, and she has resigned herself to bringing up her children, 10-year-old Billy and six-year-old Mabel, on her own.
Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) with her younger love interest Roxster (Leo Woodall). Credit: Univesal Pictures via AP
But her mates are still around to give her courage and before too long, the pep talks take effect. She goes back to her old job as a TV producer and through the kind of happy accident available only in romcoms, she attracts the attentions of an Adonis more than 20 her junior.
If you take Bridget seriously – and many women do – her addiction to romance makes her an anti-feminist. But some of the brightest talents in British comedy writing, among them Richard Curtis, Emma Thompson, Dan Mazer (Da Ali G Show) and Bridget’s creator, Helen Fielding, have worked very hard to ensure that millions more don’t take her seriously.
Even in this one, slapstick is applied liberally and Fielding’s sense of the ridiculous is ready to cut in whenever sentiment threatens to overwhelm the mood.
I still marvel at the fact that Renee Zellweger has been the one to turn Bridget into such a durable screen favourite, because her repertoire of pouts, squints and faint mews of distress have only grown more distracting with time – but she does a great double take, and it’s not as if she had to carry the show.
Along with the writing, the series’ great strength is its ensemble cast, and they’re all back. Hugh Grant’s ageing Daniel Cleaver has stepped down from the role of red-hot lover to become Bridget’s close friend and predictably unreliable babysitter, Shazza (Sally Phillips), Jude (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (James Callis) are still coming up with kind and consoling ways to deliver unpalatable home truths, and Emma Thompson’s Dr Rawlings, her no-nonsense gynaecologist, is still finding her hilarious.
Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) with competing love interest Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.Credit: Universal Pictures via AP
There are some eye-catching new additions as well. Josette Simon is gloriously self-regarding as a star of Better Women, the daytime TV show Bridget is producing, and Leila Farzad’s Perfect Nicolette, the empress of school mothers, can never resist the opportunity to point out her parental shortcomings.
The basic formula hasn’t changed much. Once again, Bridget will eventually be forced to make a choice between two love interests – Roxster (Leo Woodall), the young Adonis, and Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Billy’s science teacher, whose gruff, stitched-up exterior is a variation on the brand of aloofness Mark Darcy displayed when he and Bridget first met.
In line with its obligations as high-end escapism, the film dwells in London’s prettiest neighbourhoods. Bridget lives in a messy but charming Victorian house near Hampstead Heath and the friends and enemies she visits for dinners and parties are equally well set up.
And when she’s persuaded to raise her game as a parent and join Mr Wallaker in taking Tom and his schoolmates on an Outward Bound weekend in the country, we sample the scenic beauties of the Lake District.
More than 20 years have passed since Fielding first brought Bridget to life in her newspaper column and the feminist movement has seen many changes, but Bridget has never had much to do with feminism.
Her many doubts, flaws and missteps are both timeless and all her own, and for all Zellweger’s pouting and mewing, she hasn’t lost her gift for disarming criticism.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is in cinemas on February 13.
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