I have loved Bridget Jones since I first encountered her in the book Bridget Jones Diary and have been with her on her journey ever since. However, watching the latest big-screen outing, I couldn’t help but feel she has lost her edge.
Having read the book the movie is based on, it is partly due to the changes made for the cinematic offering (more of that later). But also, as a middle-aged mum of two, the character’s priorities have changed, and without her sole focus being on herself and her foibles, the character loses something. Yes, we want our heroines to be happy, but contentment doesn’t make for good drama.
When she first emerged, Bridget spoke to women everywhere as she shared her insecurities, crushes and weight battles in her journal. Author Helen Fielding based the character partly on her own life and that sincerity is possibly what made people fall in love with her.
Her friends were relatable, her ditziness was endearing, and her dating disasters—before Tinder was even a thought—could have been taken from many people’s real lives. She failed and failed again, and ever hopeful, she dusted herself off to fail some more.
Of course, what she saw as epic failures were just blips in the average life, but she took them to heart, constantly lamenting her single status, resenting “smug marrieds” and agonising over why things didn’t work out with someone who was so obviously Mr Wrong.
Her diary was like an additional character and served as a fabulous tool to share her inner thoughts. Even casting an American actress to play her on-screen in the form of Renée Zellweger didn’t detract from her charm. If anything, the Texan’s portrayal of the fallible heroine made me and others love her more.
In a world where most big screen heroines were perfectly coiffed, slender and glamorous, to see Bridget brought to life with flushed cheeks, messy hair and showing off her curves was very refreshing. However, it is still maddening that Renée was considered overweight when she went up to a UK size 12 for the role.
I have followed Bridget’s literary and big-screen journey, and on the whole, I have loved it.
She made notoriously harsh Thai prisons seem appealing when she found herself locked up in the second book and film The Edge of Reason. Her love life was still erratic, and despite her insecurities about her looks, Daniel Cleaver (played by Hugh Grant) and the eventual love of her life, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), were still fighting over her (literally).
Things started to go downhill a bit for me in the third big-screen instalment. The book would come after the film and was significantly different. There was no Daniel, and the ‘Who’s the Daddy’ storyline felt a bit of a tired and lazy trope. Even Emma Thompson’s gynaecologist felt like a forced attempt to inject some life and humour into the story. And the diary barely got a look in.
The book was better as Daniel was very much a feature and (spoiler) even one of the possible baby daddys. Since this was written afterwards it makes me wonder if Helen Fielding had similar issues with it as the fans.
That aside, we are now on the fourth instalment (based on the third book), and Bridget just feels a bit…tired. And not in a widowed mum-of-two way, which is where we first meet her in this movie.
While the book didn’t make me laugh out loud the way the original did, it still felt like Bridget. In her ever-present diary, she still obsesses about her weight and logs her alcohol units alongside her Nicorette gum intake, even though she no longer smokes. Like many women her age, she has Botox, and in keeping with her ditzy nature, she sends embarrassing texts and tweets.
Indeed it is on Twitter that she meets her younger lover, which feels far more Bridget than the Tinder account her friend sets up for her in the film.
Although she meets her younger lover, Roxster (Leo Woodall), in an embarrassing tree-climbing situation, they connect on the app. I don’t want to spoil the movie, but suffice it to say that Bridget seems to have had something of a personality transplant.
The clumsy situations she finds herself in feel rather forced and the fact that they have completely omitted the insecurities we knew and loved her for makes her less relatable. One mention of weight or Botox would have resonated hugely with so many people.
They have removed much of her vulnerability and focused on her status as a grieving widow instead—sad, yes, but relatable to everyone, no.
Her relationship with her younger lover is cliched, and the absence of a love rival per se (there is another man on the horizon, but not in a fighting for her honour capacity) makes it all feel very flat. I did enjoy the movie, and it is a tearjerker on many levels. But it just isn’t the Bridget I have loved for decades, and that makes me sad.