David here on the return of one of the UK's most memorable heroines...
Bridget Jones's Baby is, as things stand, the highest-grossing film released in the UK this year. Quite the result for the long-delayed comeback of a female romcom heroine whose target audience isn’t typically recognised by the movie industry as big ticket buyers. Sure, Bridget’s return wasn’t as heralded at the US box office, earning a paltry $20 million. But Bridget’s peers amongst the UK public are more loyal creatures, and the film’s easy rewatchability is apparent in the abundant returns. (Perhaps as a result of the film’s longer theatrical lifespan in the UK, the home entertainment release on UK shores isn’t until the end of January.)
Twelve years on from the misbegotten sequel The Edge of Reason, much has changed, and Bridget's famed diary now lives not on paper but on a tablet, treating the audience to many a typo (the 0 as O is an unfortunate favourite). Renee Zellweger may have permanently shed Bridget’s bemoaned weight and big bottom, but has thankfully retained her tart, exceedingly British voiceover (“Ding fucking dong!”, she exclaims at first sight of Patrick Dempsey’s new suitor), which was always the USP for the series in the first place and without which this new film may well have fallen arse-over-tit. (Which Bridget herself inevitably does.)
While co-writers Dan Mazer, Bridget author Helen Fielding, and the inimitable Emma Thompson scale things back considerably from the cross-continental absurdity of Bridget’s previous outing, the film still has plentiful slapstick, comic misunderstandings and romantic crises to satisfy the most demanding of fans. Unfortunately, both Bridget and the film seem almost petrified by the changes in the world around them. Emblems of progressiveness, from an amniocentesis needle to a proxy Pussy Riot group defended by Mark Darcy (Colin Firth, looking exhausted by the whole ordeal), are the constant butt of jokes.
Bridget begins the film trying her utmost to keep up with her younger colleague Miranda (Sarah Solemani, bright and energetic and the new deliverer of the immortal “Come the fuck on, Bridget!” line). She's presented with dating website billionaire Jack Qwant (Dempsey) as the new third point of the romantic triangle (the absence of Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver is explained in amusing fashion). She pushes herself forward at work to present an overhaul of the television news show in line with the sensationalised requirements of the new youthful, bearded-hipster management team. The world around Bridget conspires to terrify her, and the convenient surprise of her pregnancy allows her an out from all of the above, fleeing to the familiar comforts of the traditional happy-ever-after that she’s always dreamt of.
Spoilers, you could cry. But the film’s outcome was never in any doubt from the moment of its conception. The farcical ride there is fun enough, but you have to wish that the film didn’t stick its middle finger up quite so dismissively at anything even slightly new. Bridget Jones’s Baby is emblematic of a world consumed by nostalgia, as both Bridget and the audience wrap themselves in the familiar comforts of their younger days to escape the devolving society around them. It’s comfort food in movie form, the purest form of escapism - but now she has everything she ever wanted, the only possible sequel would be Bridget Jones’s Divorce.