Bridget is obviously older, yet not necessarily any wiser. The actress was back juggling her affections for snobbish barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and her caddish boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). She’s single again, but killing it professionally as a TV news producer. The film just assumes this as fact, balancing Bridget’s wryly self-deprecating inner monologue alongside the external perspective that sees her for the fetching beauty that she is. The test would reveal the identity of her unborn baby’s father, but she won’t have it, in part because there wouldn’t be a movie if she did. They haven’t figured out that cluelessness and mistakes that are endearing in a 20-something are annoying and then just exhausting when they get older. Her character is sharp and very well written indeed.
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There is still a madcap, slapstick jitteriness to dear Bridget, but calmness has emerged too – that of a woman who has finally grown into her own skin. “Tenacious and determined, she will not be defeated”. Contemplating her life, Bridget decides she needs to go out and have more fun, so she accepts an invitation from her co-worker, Miranda (Sarah Solemani; Him & Her), to have a girl’s weekend of debauchery.
It doesn’t take much effort to figure out which man is the real father and her true love. She’s hard to root against even in bad times.
After all, she might break a bone if she fell as often as she did in the first two films. This new comedy delivers on all fronts with the hallmark qualities fans love, and which have turned Bridget Jones into one of the most iconic, touching and funniest characters of modern cinema. If anything, Bridget Jones’s Baby faces an even bigger challenge: How do you get audiences to care about the same heroine going through the same troubles with men 17 years later? “The universal undercurrent is that everyone is afraid of being lonely”.
“One of the reasons the first film worked was not just because of the comedy but because people identified with Bridget’s fear of loneliness”, says Maguire.
Zellweger is skinnier than she ever has been to play Jones, after gaining weight to play her in the first two iterations.
But her co-star Sally Phillips, who plays Bridget’s formerly sweary BFF Shazza, has another idea in mind. “Everybody’s hoped for something and been disappointed”. While Zellweger slips easily enough back into the role – the snarky speculation about her appearance notwithstanding – the “Which dreamboat will she pick?” meme certainly qualifies as a high-class problem. We’ve neatly laid it all out for you below. “As you go through life, you realise that there isn’t a point that you reach where you have it all figured out”.
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And yet the movie’s premise, in which Bridget becomes pregnant but isn’t sure by whom, feels undeniably modern.
