The fitfully amusing, intermittently entertaining screenplay by Dan Mazer, Fielding, and Emma Thompson – the latter also playing a supporting role as Bridget’s brusque obstetrician – is based not on the series’ third book (Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy), but instead on a number of independent columns by Fielding and it manages to stand alone sufficiently for viewers who haven’t seen the earlier installments. 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.
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“I was just so happy to be back in her world”.
At a music festival with her TV colleague (Sarah Solemani), Bridget has a one-night stand with an American named Jack (Patrick Dempsey); just a few days later, she runs into Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who is still carrying a torch for her. Now, years later, Bridget is in her 40s and Mark Darcy has gone off and married someone else.
But the new movie is an excellent example of people going back to the roots and understanding the charms of the original “Bridget Jones’s Diary” film – which is to realize the charm of Helen Fielding’s novels – and playing to those strengths.
Yet the sequel somehow managed to nicely resolve Bridget’s relationship status with the achingly awkward Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), making a third film unnecessary, as all parties seemed to amazingly agree. Bridget has a lot of catching up to do, and the film never once feels forced in into its assimilation into 2016.
“Bridget Jones’s Baby” is the sequel worthy of the Bridget Jones moniker, not like its first failure at one. What Bridget Jones’s Diary got right for women in their thirties is the tricky, sometimes painful, often confused junction where feminism rubs up against the legitimate desire to find love that holds. She’s looking at a lonely future. It is absolutely inconceivable that Bridget, a single 43-year-old pregnant woman, never considers terminating her pregnancy even if she eventually rejected it. Her inconsistency at work is unrealistically laughed off.
She has a good time with Jack and goes on her way.
And, with the help of director Sharon Maguire, Bridget’s situation is all the more relatable, says Zellweger.
Zellweger’s weight doesn’t change her performance.
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The movie’s greatest misstep – other than Dempsey’s boring romantic foil – is that, at one point, Bridget flashes back to events from the first movie. I love that she’s hopelessly romantic and optimistic.
