Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)

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The second time’s most definitely not the charm for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the uninspired sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary (2000). Although Renee Zellweger’s zaftig heroine remains as engaging as ever, she’s stuck in a flimsy, awkwardly constructed narrative that plays like a warmed over retread of the vastly better first film.

There are a few funny scenes, but director Beeban Kidron seems more interested in cramming the soundtrack with wall to wall pop songs, sometimes to the point of drowning out the dialogue, instead of developing the story and characters. It’s never a good sign when a director relies so heavily on pop songs to convey emotion or propel the story. At times, the soundtrack is so intrusive in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason that you wonder if music supervisor Nick Angel directed the film, rather than Kidron.

Picking up almost immediately where the first film ended, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason finds the “singleton” heroine deliriously happy with her boyfriend of six, “shagadelic” weeks, the dashing human rights attorney Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The boozy, overweight, and outspoken Bridget has finally found someone who loves her, flaws and all. Yet for all her romantic bliss, Bridget is still wracked with insecurity and anxiety about the future with Mark.

Her shaky confidence in the relationship slips even further when she meets his newest colleague, Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett), a glamorous and fabulously wealthy Australian beauty. Consumed with jealousy, Bridget dumps Mark and flies off to Thailand, where she has a fateful rendezvous with that irresistible cad, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Only after she’s wrongfully arrested on drug charges and thrown in a Thai prison does Bridget realize she may have sabotaged her best chance at joining the ranks of the “smug marrieds” with Mark.

The razor sharp dialogue and multi faceted characters in Bridget Jones’s Diary get short shrift in the sequel, which feels more strung together than carefully plotted. Bridget’s chain smoking cadre of friends barely registers here. Nor do her parents (Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones), whose marital troubles were a key subplot in the first film. As for Rebecca, Bridget’s would be rival for Mark’s affections, she’s simply too vague a presence to be a real threat. This time, character takes a back seat to narrative contrivance most specifically, Bridget’s sojourn in a Thai prison, which is only mildly amusing and reeks of creative desperation on the part of the filmmakers.

Given the threadbare quality of the script and Kidron’s lackadaisical direction, the cast supplies the charm that’s otherwise missing from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Once again, Zellweger convincingly transforms herself into the very British heroine. She’s winning and likable as her Bridget blunders her way from one embarrassing situation to the next. Firth (Love Actually) is properly steadfast and true as Bridget’s Mr. Right, while Grant clearly enjoys himself playing the womanizing bad boy.

If you enjoyed Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason offers you more of the same and not much else. This is one diary you can skim without missing anything juicy.

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