Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
By a whisker, the fourth instalment in Helen Fielding’s cinematic diary might actually be the most satisfying.
Renée Zellweger
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Renée Zellweger first piled on the pounds and adopted an English accent twenty-four years ago. Since then Bridget Jones has stumbled through a chain of wardrobe malfunctions, solitary evenings (cue Eric Carmen’s ‘All By Myself’), romantic disappointments, full-blown passion, pregnancy and now widowhood, dragging with her a generation of female fans who appreciate the funny side of growing old disgracefully. Since the last film, the predictable, hackneyed Bridget Jones’s Baby, Zellweger has won a second Oscar (for her astonishing turn as Judy Garland) and taken a big-screen sabbatical, while Bridget has resigned herself to a life of solitary parenting. For a while now, romance would seem to be off the table. Mysteriously, Bridget seems to be surrounded by the same set of friends, who all drink copiously, swear like troopers and believe that what Bridget really needs is a jolly good shagging.
As a romcom, the franchise is still set in a familiar template which dictates that every emotional gear change is accompanied by a hit song, that every winter comes with a Dickensian snowfall and that the picturesque nooks and crannies of London possess an air of Mary Poppins. But it is the incessantly sentimental-cum-comic music that is the major irritant. Bridget herself remains a grotesque caricature, while one wonders just how many laughs the scriptwriters think they can wring out of the ‘f’ word. Bridget declares “I have hung up my tongue” and insists that she is now completely asexual. But the words of her late father (Jim Broadbent, in a sweet cameo), suggesting that she should learn to live her life and not just survive it, resonate anew. So Bridget gets a new job – as a TV producer – hires a “hideously perfect nanny” (Nico Parker, daughter of Thandiwe Newton), jumps on Tinder and purchases an unseemly amount of condoms.
Considering the negative scar tissue left by the previous films (particularly 2004’s embarrassing Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), building fresh muscle would seem to be an uphill task. Renée Zellweger is now 55 and her affair with the 27-year-old Leo Woodall (playing a 29-year-old) doesn’t entirely ring true. Much fun is made of his wet-shirt moment, echoing Colin Firth’s turn in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice. And, nudge nudge, Colin Firth returns as a spectral Mr Darcy here, being the father of Bridget’s school-age children, Billy and Mabel. At a birthday party for Bridget’s work colleague Talitha (Josette Simon), the latter’s toy dog is knocked into a swimming pool. Enter Leo Woodall’s gallant Roxster, who sizes up the situation, dives into the pool (still wearing his shoes), scoops up the canine and hands it to Talitha, although how he knows it is Talitha’s dog is not made clear. But then logic has very little to do with this fourth instalment in the series. To be fair, there are a handful of genuine chuckles (often at the expense of an intimate medical condition of Mabel’s, who is taught how to pronounce ‘syphilis’ by Emma Thompson’s gynaecologist), and a welcome return from Hugh Grant as a resurrected Daniel Cleaver. Best of all, though, is Chiwetel Ejiofor as Billy’s science teacher Mr Wallaker who, unrequired to weave comic gold, grounds the film in an unexpected reality. Romcom fans will remember Ejiofor from Richard Curtis’s vastly superior Love Actually, but he brings a truth to every part he plays and here he elevates a hugely silly film to something actually rather touching.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Jim Broadbent, Isla Fisher, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Casper Knopf, Mila Jankovic, Gemma Jones, James Callis, Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, Sarah Solemani, Celia Imrie, Leila Farzad, Josette Simon, Nico Parker, Neil Pearson, Dolly Wells, Claire Skinner, Joanna Scanlan, Laura Bailey, Emma Thompson.
Dir Michael Morris, Pro Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Jo Wallett, Ex Pro Helen Fielding and Renée Zellweger, Screenplay Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Abi Morgan, Ph Suzie Lavelle, Pro Des Kave Quinn, Ed Mark Day, Music Dustin O’Halloran, Costumes Molly Emma Rowe, Sound Glenn Freemantle, Dialect coach Brett Tyne.
StudioCanal/Miramax/Working Title Films-Universal Pictures.
124 mins. UK/USA/France. 2025. UK and US Rel: 13 February 2025. Cert. 15.
