Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

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In Bridget Jones’ (Renée Zellweger) 32nd year as a relationship-less London “singleton”, she decides to keep a diary of the progress of her New Year’s vows to, among other things, quit smoking, lose weight, and avoid men who are “alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, emotional f**kwits, or perverts.” Nevertheless, at her family’s New Year’s Day turkey curry buffet, she’s appalled by the paragon of masculine virtue that her mother (Gemma Jones) tries to fix her up with, barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). His reindeer sweater is bad enough, but when Bridget overhears him referring to her as “a verbally incontinent spinster,” that’s the end of it.

Bridget, instead, sets her cap for the man she admits is the “office scoundrel,” her boss, the rakish Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, thoroughly enjoying the rare chance to play the cad). Dressing for sexual success at her low level PR job, Bridget’s short skirts and see through blouses have the desired effect, landing her in Daniel’s bed. She’s still smoking, still slightly overweight, still drinking too much, still too single to sit well with her married friends and family (who all keep reminding her of her biological clock with the acerbic comment, “tick tock, tick tock”), and still a disaster in public, where she invariably finds some fresh way to humiliate herself. Plus, she keeps running into that awful Mark Darcy, who isn’t shy about expressing his disapproval of her relationship with Daniel with good reason.

Fans of Fielding’s novel may be disappointed at how some of the book’s events have been conflated and characters reduced Bridget’s friends are now little more than a Greek chorus of feminine paranoia, and her mother is not nearly as interesting. The biggest loss is how Bridget and Mark’s relationship is now nothing more than a conventional romantic triangle with Daniel, rather than the book’s more complex courtship.

Still, the screenplay, by Fielding with Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and the Black Adder series) and Andrew Davies (BBC’s Pride and Prejudice), retains some of the novel’s best scenes, including the Kafka’s Motorbike book party (featuring Salman Rushdie and Geoffrey Archer, in place of the book’s Julian Barnes) and Bridget’s TV reporting debut sliding down a firehouse pole.

The Brits were outraged when their Bridget was cast with an American, but once they finally see Zellweger in the role, the protests should subside. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in the part. She wasn’t cast for her American box office potential (she’s not that big a star, for one thing), but rather for the particular qualities she brings to the role. What Zellweger does well is exude likability and vulnerability. On the printed page, Bridget could explain herself well enough, but even with the addition of Zellweger’s narration in the movie, the character is not always admirable she’s self-absorbed, slightly daft, and sometimes stupid. Also, Mark isn’t exactly off the mark with the “verbally incontinent” crack; in a less amiable actor’s hands, Bridget could easily slide into the pathetic or the shrill. Zellweger doesn’t let that happen.

Grant and Firth represent the film’s other casting coups. Grant, for once, exudes actual heat instead of falling back on the fumbling, asexual, pretty boy persona that has served his career so well. Instead, he exults in a waggish lasciviousness that renders Bridget’s obsession with him wholly understandable. Firth, who plays Mr. Darcy in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice BBC miniseries that figures in Fielding’s novel (Mark’s last name “Darcy” is no coincidence), makes nearly as big an impression as he did in that star making role. He makes it look easy, but as Bridget tells Mark, “I didn’t know good boys could kiss like that.” It’s a hard job rendering moral rectitude which so often comes across as priggishness sexy, but Firth manages.

In addition to Zellweger’s voice over, Maguire finds a few inventive ways to work Bridget’s diary into the fabric of the film, including having parts of it occasionally flash on message boards throughout London. It’s a pity she couldn’t have been as creative when planning the sound those pop ballads have got to go. The average romantic comedy is usually so mediocre that an intrusive soundtrack really doesn’t matter. This one, though, nearly ruins an otherwise winning movie. And that’s a pity.

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