Review
Review Date: 14-November-04
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
As I understand it, the widespread appeal of Bridget Jones is that she is looked upon as the patron saint of the Average Single Gal, an appropriately short-skirted cheerleader to all unmarried women who cling to the hope that Prince Charming might love them despite their inelegance, insecurity, and indecorous cottage-cheese thighs. Yet to my mind, her story is too formulaically flippant to be inspiring. How can anyone take the romantic comedy to heart, with its contrived situations and neglect of human connection? A comedy should address the ridiculous, while a romance should address the (miraculously) possible; a combination of the two is but a feeble hybrid of species that only lightly coincide. Bridget Jones, as embodied by Renée Zellweger, may be a funny and sometimes empathetic character, but her movies deny her the credibility to become effectively real.
"Bridget Jones's Diary" introduced us (at least those of us who hadn't read Helen Fielding's book) to the 32-year-old singleton who journals her search for love and self-fulfillment in modern-day London. Despite the fact that she's gainfully employed, blessed with affectionate parents (Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent), supported by a posse of chums, and barely eligible for the stigma of pudginess, Bridget views herself as a loser because she doesn't have a boyfriend. The movie expands this notion to deliver its quota of chuckles, making her wear embarrassing clothes (the panties = funny, the New Year's drapery = not) and setting her up to act like a moron in public.
But neither loserness nor comic ineptitude prevents Bridget from catching the eye of her caddish boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) or sparking a reluctant attachment with reserved barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). The movie might have used this triangle to show how love blooms in any soil, but the dictates of the genre prevent it from doing so. Bridget's relationship with Daniel comes closest to being believable, as it starts with euphoric sex, ends with issues of compatibility, and contains several scenes of actual dialogue. Unfortunately, the tension that surrounds her interaction with Darcy (allegedly but unconvincingly a great catch) is improbable; they develop supposedly deep mutual feelings based on nothing whatsoever (as in all such flicks) and speechify at each other without ever conversing. The entire movie is obviously leading up to the moment of their union, but it feels like the perfunctory conclusion to a string of unconnected incidents played mostly for laughs.
"Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" begins after six weeks have passed, which Bridget and Darcy have spent blissfully boinking the daylights out of each other (and, presumably, working on those deep mutual feelings, although heaven knows we don't get to see any of that). The first part of the film is promising because it leaves off trying to be so damn witty and builds up a plausible situation that explores Bridget's lingering self-doubt and the question of whether she and Darcy can make it for the long haul, which of course she wants to do. (Her concern about weight makes somewhat better sense here, as Zellweger appears to have packed on more pounds than the first time.) As if making up for the relative gravity of the opening, the second part of the movie gets totally out of hand, with Bridget flying to Germany to look like an ass on the ski slopes and then jetting off to Thailand to eat magic mushrooms and get thrown in prison for smuggling cocaine.
All of the characters from the first film return for the sequel, but by this point every one but Bridget and Darcy is superfluous (her parents and pals were always so, but Daniel Cleaver joins their ranks when he wanly tries to win back the "best shag he ever had"). The heart of the story, in which all followers of St. Bridget should want to wallow, is how the lovers face down the threats to their happiness, including an incongruity of personality and lifestyle (he's a repressed lawyer, she's a professional buffoon). The problem is, romantic comedies have no interest in the actual workings of falling or staying in love; their goal is to depict love (and its cinematic end-all, marriage) as the relieving punchline to a series of jokes. This, combined with the fact that Darcy is the most boring Prince Charming ever, precludes any warm-'n'-fuzzy feelings about the romance of the tale or its inevitable ending. (The movie even informs us that the pair has opposing views on child rearing and then expects us to feel great that they're going to plunge into it without any further discussion. You'll pardon me if I don't consider that a happy ending.)
From the first scene in the first movie, we know that Bridget will escape spinsterhood and ride off into the sunset with Darcy, so the question for anyone seeking hope in her story is how on earth she managed it. The only answer that "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "The Edge of Reason" (and all other romantic comedies) provide is a run-around response suggesting either that true love is a frivolous subject most suited for comedy, or that falling in love is too dull to be entertaining. For this single female, that's no cause for celebration.
Copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.
