The long-awaited Bridget Jones sequel is out now, was it worth the patience?
The new Bridget Jones film wastes no time pulling at your heartstrings. Within the first 20 minutes, before the opening credits had even rolled, my wife was tearing up in the seat nextto mine. A madcap, screwball romp through romantic mishaps and misadventures, this is not.
In fact, I hesitate to call this fourth instalment in the long-running rom-com franchise a rom-com at all. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is more accurately described as a loss-com. A weepie. A bummer?
Well, maybe that’s going too far. The movie manages to be an unashamed tearjerker while still adhering to every one of the expected rom-com tropes. There’s a comical meet-cute, some flustered back and forth, a possible love triangle, a whirlwind romance, a near relationship-ending misunderstanding and, of course, a grand declaration in the falling snow, that one party has had to desperately run through to get to the other.
So far, so Bridget Jones. It’s all formulaic, but that’s what rom-coms are.
However, where the movie does push at the genre boundaries is by placing grim death right at the forefront of the otherwise frothy, feel-good genre. Bridget is now a grieving widow who has withdrawn from the world after her husband Mark Darcy’s death. She now spends her days in a state of chaos dashing around in her pyjamas, trying to keep it together long enough to be a good mum to their two children while also regularly talking with her dead husband’s ghost.
White Lotus star Leo Woodall joins the cast of characters.
After four years of this behaviour, her friends from the previous three films decide enough is enough and begin encouraging her to get her life together by a) returning to work and b) getting laid. Eventually, after the movie has once again turned up the mourning violins and had you reaching for the tissues, she heeds their advice and the film kicks into a tonally lighter gear.
The opportunity for a fish-out-of-water romp through modern dating is left wanting as Bridget instead quickly hooks up with a much younger man she meets after getting stuck in a tree. This change in her love life leaves her (and her friends) absolutely giddy. Meanwhile, bubbling away in the background, Bridget has an almost flirty, love-hate, will-they-won’t-they relationship with her son’s science teacher going on.
This has all the makings of a classic rom-com love triangle filled with all manner of romantic antics and lovestruck snafus. Except that here, the cold, dead hand of her husband is never too far away to dampen the mood. Bridget does fumble her way into a couple of her trademark cringe situations, but not at the scale of previous entries and the movie sorely lacks a big memorable, comedic setpiece.
Renee Zellweger once again delivers in the title role, bumbling through the film with an adorkable fluster, even if you can’t help but feel a little of the character’s quirk would have tempered with age and parenthood. Hugh Grant is again a gruff delight as womanising former flame Daniel Cleaver and Emma Thompson gets some of the biggest laughs as Bridget’s no-nonsense gynecologist Dr Rawlings, who Bridget now treats as her general GP.
Chiwetel Ejiofor returns to romantic comedy (he starred in Love Actually).
As a farewell to Bridget and co the movie is a well-intentioned and, for its genre, an ambitious send-off. It seeks to inject real weight and poignancy into its genre while still delivering the classic rom-com escapism experience.
But there’s a reason dead husbands, dead parents and death scares don’t feature prominently in the rom-com genre. And that’s because none of these things are funny or romantic.
Nevertheless, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy does do an admirable job of balancing on the tightrope it has set up for itself. Looking for love as a widowed mother of two in your 50s is a far different proposition than it is as a carefree, wine-loving, power-balladeering 30-something and the movie acknowledges and embraces that.
Essentially, it trades big laughs for big feels. You’ll laugh (softly), you’ll cry (a lot), but whether you’ll once again fall in love with Bridget Jones … well, that’s a little more complicated.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is screening in New Zealand cinemas now.
Karl Puschmann is an entertainment columnist for the Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
