Bridget Jones is back – and she’s still the same self-obsessed, shallow-as-puddle, breathy-voiced, duck-waddling, artless ditz that we have always loved. And if this is the final one in the franchise, then they’ve saved the best till last.
In Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Bridget is now a widow with two young children, Mabel and Billy, who are painfully grieving their father, lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), after he was killed on a humanitarian mission four years ago – bringing the real world crashing in on their comfy upper middle class existence.
Well, as much of the real world as a schmaltzy romcom can handle. Bridget still manages to live in a £2m Georgian basement flat in Hampstead, North London, on her widow’s pension. Sends her children to what looks suspiciously like an expensive prep school, and hires an irritatingly perfect nanny when she goes back to her old job as a TV producer.
Smug marrieds and her old mates Jude (Shirley Henderson) and Shazzer (Sally Phillips) are still giving unwanted advice – and rudely telling her to get laid again before it “closes up”.
Which I guess why Bridget is still seeing her droll gynae (Emma Thompson). The doc’s advice to “put her own oxygen mask first” which means she’s almost certainly treating Bridget’s wrong end.
While Bridget enthusiastically digs out her big pants (small cheer from the audience) to go dating – then thinks ahead and chooses something smaller and definitely more itchy, women of a certain age will identify more with Shazzer’s character, who now interviews minor celebs for her podcast and spends her life being furious.
And rather than everyone just thinking he’s babysitting when he’s dating his much younger girlfriends, “Uncle” Daniel Cleaver (Huge Grant) actually does look after the miniature Darcys so Bridget can go out on a date. The old cad has softened a bit but still gets all the funniest lines.
As always Bridget has to decide between two men – this time tree adonis toyboy Rockster (Leo Woodall) and her children’s uptight whistle-blowing teacher Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
In these more politically correct days, I was shocked to see a couple of scenes of casual sexual objectification of both male love interests, and I will be making a serious complaint… that there weren’t nearly enough of them!
It’s rare to see a film that goes down well with such a mixed audience of both Gen Z and Gen X. Although I did notice that while the young people to my left didn’t quite get all of the in-jokes and sensibly sipped water, the middle-aged women to my right laughed uproariously, drank too much white wine – and ended up in the wrong row when coming back from the loo. Those are my people.
Naturally it snows in the movie, as it always does when Jones realises her what’s been staring her in the face all this time – and she goes after the man she truly loves.
At her age, though, she really ought to avoid running on dangerously icy cobbles. And if Bridget does get another outing, I suggest she gets herself a nice pair of non-slips to go with those cardis she insists on wearing several sizes too small.
At the end of the film, the audience of hard-boiled London press even clapped, which I think tells you the fourth Bridget has enough of the magic and charm of the original to make it a big hit.
I sat through the credits and watched all the old snaps from past Bridget Jones movies pop up on screen. It felt a bit like I was looking at my own family album – that’s how long Bridget has been with us.
Then the lights came up and I saw I was alone with hundreds of bars of free chocolate from the movie sponsor Galaxy which all the too-cool-for-school media types had left behind.
“What would Bridget do in this situation?” I thought to myself. And quickly stuffed as many bars of chocolate as I could fit in my handbag without alerting the authorities.
• Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (15) now on general release in all UK cinemas
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