While they indeed do the deed, Bridget has no idea who Jack really is and Jack doesn’t know Bridget’s last name.
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Renee Zellweger is charming as ever in “Bridget Jones’s Baby”, a lively return to form for the unlikely trilogy about an ordinary woman and her professional and romantic woes.
Bridget is independent and quite happy to be having a baby, but she has to deal with the reactions of other people. Her inconsistency at work is unrealistically laughed off. She’s less obsessed with her weight, is successful at her job as a TV news producer and has even quit smoking.
In a span of one week she has a fling with a billionaire Internet match-maker played by Patrick Dempsey and a reunion fling with Mr. Darcy, played by the like-able Colin Firth.
She said: “Bridget is eternally optimistic, self-effacing and finds humour whenever facing adversity”. Just who else is also with child in this scenario – Jack or Mark – is the question that’s up for debate in the film.
Though, the first sign that “Bridget Jones’s Baby” was going to be something different and far better than “The Edge of Reason” was the return of Sharon Maguire, the director of the original, iconic film, add a pinch of Emma Thompson in the screenplay and the return of most of the original cast (minus Hugh Grant) and we might have a victor. She grew a human with that body.
Bridget Jones is a goddess.
Once again, our Bridget is basically a modern-day Austen heroine, which means two men must battle for her affections.
Bridget refuses the amniocentesis from her OB-GYN (a flawless Emma Thompson, whose appearance alone makes the movie worth it).
Renee Zellweger made Bridget a lovable screen character in Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), so much so that the character survived a mediocre sequel – Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). But the script by Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Emma Thompson also creates wonderful opportunities for the movie’s fantastic and amusing ensemble – including both returning castmembers like Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, and Sally Phillips, and series newcomers like Thompson herself (as Bridget’s smartly blunt OB-GYN), Kate O’Flynn (as Bridget’s odd, strict new boss) and Sarah Solemani (as Bridget’s outgoing friend/co-worker, who steals most of her scenes). There’s no filler in its 122 minutes, which allows the characters enough breathing room to consider their choices. It is okay for a 43-year-old single woman to fear she can’t handle a baby on her own and consider terminating her pregnancy. Instead of wallowing in the self-pity that opening scene suggests, she seizes the moment as an opportunity for rebranding: No more tragic spinster, Bridget’s now a mature sexpot.
When Bridget discovers she’s pregnant, she learns, a bit too late, that condoms have a best-before date.
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BOTTOM LINE: What a treat it is to dive back into the cozy world of Bridget Jones, who is the kind of old friend you can pick up with right where it left off, no matter how long it’s been.
