Alone after losing Mark, she attends an outdoor music festival and stumbles into the yurt of Jack Qwant (Dempsey). In an unlikely twist she finds herself pregnant, but with one hitch: Bridget’s uncertain if the baby’s father is her longtime love…or the newfound one from just across the pond. Two exceptions are Bridget’s father, Colin-filled with a depth of emotion that far exceeds Jim Broadbent’s criminal lack of screen time-and Bridget’s physician, Dr. Rawlings (Emma Thompson).
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The original Blair Witch Project and the original Bridget Jones’s Diary came out within two years of each other, back in 1999 and 2001. Nonetheless, as quickly as it took for her to rise, it took just as quickly for her to fall. Not as good as Hugh Grant’s sly-eyed elevator scene in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” – really, is anything as good as Hugh Grant’s sly-eyed elevator scene in “Bridget Jones’s Diary”? – but better than a Christmas sweater or a Turkey Curry Buffet. I love both movies for the generous, candid, willfully vulgar spirit with which they take on the often inhospitable world many women face today.
No one should ever accuse Renée Zellweger, although they likely will anyway, of going for easy cash with her Bridget Jones series. Not a bad thing, since it makes room in a putative romantic comedy for some of the funniest newsroom send-up scenes I’ve seen since Broadcast News. A 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, provided a poor answer, stranding Bridget in a Thai prison while letting Daniel and Mark revive their rivalry. Thompson delivers every line and fixes every stare with the tart awareness that reduces the men in Bridget’s life from masters of the universe to emperors with no clothes. In her forties, Bridget is a different kind of singleton than she was ten years earlier. The returning cast are just as wonderful and charming as before and the film retains the awkward and uncomfortable humour the previous movies were filled with.
“I didn’t feel myself judging her about it”, says Zellweger. Sequels can be tricky, but ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’ is a real treat for Bridget fans and newcomers alike.
How does Bridget (now producing a delightfully inept television show misnamed “Hard News”) get into her predicament?
Unlike other pregnancy/romantic comedies, “Bridget Jones’s Baby” actually comes up with original and very amusing jokes.
Part of what’s so refreshing about “Bridget Jones’s Baby” is that at 43, Bridget is effortlessly desirable, sexy, adventurous, and yes, adorable. “You have an idea what you’re interested in and what you want to know more about, so when you go study, it’s not to make a grade, but because you want to know what’s in the book”.
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Still, Bridget Jones’s Baby is a fun distraction.
