Following some time out, the 47-year-old couldn’t wait to make her big screen return and knew the time was right when she was offered the chance to reprise her role as Bridget in the upcoming comedy, Bridget Jones’s Baby, the third instalment of the franchise.
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“It was time”, Zellweger said recently in Santa Monica, California, near her home.
And it would appear that even the stars of the movie were kept in the dark as to how the story would unfold.
It turns out a lengthy break is just what this series needed to find its footing after the manic missteps of 2004’s “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”, which fell into some of the common traps of sequels looking to up the stakes.
Bridget Jones mines the riches of embarrassment. Bridget and I, by extension, earned every one of them.
Zellweger had the ideal success story as an American actress who transformed her voice and her body to play an overweight British woman stumbling to find love. Perhaps that’s because the last time I saw her was in 2004’s pretty terrible Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which erased the vast good will I had for Bridget Jones’s Diary, the 2001 original. Bridget (Renée Zellweger) is still a singleton in London as the story opens, as regularly frustrated with her personal life as she is successful at her job as a TV newsmagazine producer. As we have known, Bridget Jones is a 40 year old single Brit. (As for 50, that might be time to face facts.) And so, “Bridget Jones’s Baby” seems fairly plausible. The charm of Bridget’s pratfalls and romantic embarrassments was gone, or at least was in hiding during production. Zellweger has also added a new element to Bridget, a quality of airiness fused with solidity that suggests Jean Arthur. But her life and her problems belong in another era-one where movie heroines have sassy gay BFFs to offer advice, and one that demands a traditional resolution to Bridget’s eternal quest for a “happily ever after”.
Unlike Bridget Jones’s Baby, Blair Witch tried to come out of nowhere just like its predecessor did. Bridget and Mark’s initial courtship was so lovely and satisfying that putting them through the ringer yet again seems a little cruel, for both the characters and the audience. The film sees Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, and Gemma Jones return to their roles while Patrick Dempsey and Emma Thompson join the cast.
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Some scenes echo those from the previous films but Bridget Jones’s Baby can stand on its own. Without ever being excessive, the movie takes wonderful advantage of the freedom that comes with skewing more towards adults – throwing around profanity and plenty of sexuality/innuendo for humor without being obscene or overly blue. Seeing her struggle with societal expectations as a 43-year-old makes more sense and is more gratifying than it was in her 30s because there’s always been something old-fashioned about Bridget.
