Working Title Films
Directed by: Sharon Maguire
Screenplay by Helen Fielding and Richard Curtis (based on Fielding’s best-selling novel of the same title)
Stars: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson, James Callis, Embeth Davidtz, Honor Blackman, and Celia Imrie.
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Jonathan Cavendish.
’’This year will take total control of my life. Will make resolutions and keep them. Resolution Number One - in order to mark triumphant year in which everything stops being sh*t - will keep a diary.’’
-Bridget Jones
It’s been a while since I have felt like Bridget, but I can never forget what it felt like to feel like that.
’’Smug marrieds’’ like me won’t miss the aggravation of being single and looking for the perfect man, particularly after watching this film. Bridget Jones Diary is based on the novel of the same name written by Helen Fielding, which started out as a column for a London newspaper. I’m never that impressed with Renee Zellweger in any of the things that I have seen her in (anyone could have played her part in Me, Myself, and Irene; and she was anemic eye candy in Jerry McGuire). I didn’t expect much from her in this movie, either, even though there were flattering reviews of her performance and her convincing British accent (in light of the fact that she is Texan) in several movie magazines that I had read beforehand. Zellweger has weird, pouty, watery-eyed facial expressions and a certain sloppy quality about her even when she is trying to be elegant. I think that was the look they were going for in this movie, too; Bridget Jones is hopelessly sloppy and in a constant state of disarray in this movie. Her looks reflect her lifestyle and the haphazard relationships that she makes (somewhere out in cyberspace, people are reading this and saying ’’DUH! That’s the point of hiring a costume consultant and hairstylist, genius!’’).
Brief previews of this movie were somewhat misleading. The back of the video and the production notes on Yahoo! described this as a single woman being torn between two men, one who is seemingly perfect, and one who is perfectly awful, or something equally trite and marketing-sounding. The thing is, you watch Hugh Grant playing Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s editor-in-chief that she’s infatuated with, and you can see him cheating on her five minutes into their relationship, he’s a perfect cad! The other man in question isn’t exactly panting at her feet, either; Colin Firth plays Mark Darcy, a human rights barrister that her mother tries to fix her up with at her turkey curry buffet on New Year’s Eve. And yes, you aren’t imagining things, Mark Darcy IS modeled after Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen! Not only that, but Colin Firth also played that very character in a 1996 adaptation of that same novel (one of the only adaptations of that book worth renting, I might add).
Hugh Grant is an excellent foil to Firth’s Darcy, and he even has the same smirky ’’Wickham’’ quality. Bridget’s New Year’s resolutions include her refusal to get involved with her boss and also to ’’ find nice, sensible boyfriend to go out with and won’t continue to form romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, commitmentphobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fwits or perverts.’’ Nevertheless, she indulges in suggestive and un-PC emails and allows him the occasional grab at her sizable backside in elevators (Zellweger gained around 20 pounds for this role, and it shows; but she doesn’t have any cellulite).
Bridget starts off the New Year with Mark’s muttered insults ringing in her ear after overhearing him telling his mother at the turkey curry dinner that he wasn’t interested in that ’’verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and dresses like her mother.’’ Ouch. His opinion of women in general needed help, according to Bridget’s mother, who tells her ’’His Japanese wife left him (cruel race), ’’ right before sending Bridget upstairs to change into a horrible red tapestry vest and skirt that Bridget likened to ’’wearing a carpet.’’
Bridget’s diary details her daily tally of cigarettes, alcohol intake, and weight, which fluctuates whenever there’s a dramatic change in her love life. At the beginning of the movie, her stats read ’’Weight: 136lbs. Cigarettes: 45. Alcohol: 40 (crossed out)-50 units.’’ The tally dips when Bridget allows her boss (Daniel) to woo her, not knowing that she is actually falling into HIS clutches. Daniel takes her out to dinner after a miserable evening at her publishing company’s launch party for a novel called ’’Kafka’s Motorbike.’’ After boning up on the proper pronunciations of people’s names, a tortuous bikini wax, donning some enormous ’’stomach-hold-in’’ underpants, and consulting with her friends on how best to get his attention (over vodka and cigarettes), Bridget makes a complete fool of herself over the microphone (which she wrongly assumes is turned off) and has a less than ideal encounter with Mark and his svelte ’’colleague’’ Natasha. (The actress reminds me of the one who played ’’Duckface’’ in Four Weddings and a Funeral.’’)
The plot thickens during dinner when Daniel tells Bridget the reason for the animosity between himself and Mark: ’’I made the mistake of introducing him to my fiancée.’’ That’s the first of a handful of well-placed lies that he tells her to expand her illusion of him as the ’’perfect man.’’
In the meantime, Bridget’s parents have problems of their own. Bridget’s mother allows herself to be seduced by a QVC spokesperson that Bridget’s dad refers to as that ’’tangerine-tinted buffoon.’’ Bridget gives her father good intentioned but horrible advice that he should flirt with other women at the Tarts and Vicars party that they were both roped into going to. ’’That’s how I found my boyfriend, and he’s PERFECT.’’ The scenes that ensued were embarrassingly funny, particularly Bridget’s choice of costume (a black satin Playboy bunny suit, complete with fuzzy tail).
The ironic thing is, I just finished watching ’’Ilegally Blonde’’ this weekend, too, and Reese Witherspoon shows up to a party inappropriately attired in a pink Playboy suit, too. It was a funny coincidence.
This movie didn’t have much in it to garner an R rating, although there was one TINY, all-the-way-naked sex scene toward the end that they put in there for dramatic effect. The only other scrap of nudity would have been Bridget sliding down the firepole with the camera trained on her backside as she was coming down.
This was a fun movie to watch; I just found myself frustrated with Bridget’s tendency to turn a blind eye to Daniel being such a cad, particularly when she had resolved not to get involved with him. She also just seemed very frowsy and irresponsible, and I got tired of seeing her puffing on cigarettes. I also had a hard time seeing how someone who was such a horrible public speaker could get a job working as a reporter for a news station (after she quit her publishing job, telling Daniel ’’I would rather get a job wiping Saddam Hussein’s a$$ then continue working for you!’’)..
I guess it is a little empowering, but don’t go into this expecting any major emotional breakthroughs or personal discoveries from the main character.
Expect some wonderful performances, however, from Bridget’s best friends Shazza, Jude, and Tom, and also from her parents, whom you may have seen in other productions before. Also expect some excellent backdrops (this was filmed in London) and beautiful houses and apartments. The soundtrack isn’t bad, either.