Bridget Jones: A Tale of Two Suitors
Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” echoes through the living room of a girly and disorganized flat with a disheveled woman holding a large glass of white wine sitting on a couch: Bridget Jones is back.
Bridget’s charming awkwardness in the first film doesn’t translate nearly as well in this sequel, and her inconsistencies don’t seem like conscious decisions by the character, but instead lax writing wrought with conveniences for the sake of the plot. As a result she is unrelatable, which makes it hard to connect to the film as a whole.
The issues with being realistic start early on in the film. Hugh Grant’s absence is noticeable, and his character, Daniel, is written off in a laughable way that was so ridiculous it almost feels self-aware. The absurdity continues as we are reintroduced to an older Bridget Jones, still haplessly in love with Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) still alone, and still a self-confessed wine lover.
At the age of 43, Bridget Jones is content with herself and she’s not looking to set a goal of self-improvement as past films have been centered on. Jones is healthier and happier, focused on reconnecting with her younger self by spending time with her new Millennial friends at Hard News, a banal news network where she works.
Wanting to spice up her 43rd year, she agrees to go to a music festival. It is here that the dapper, handsome Jack is introduced, a convenient stand in for Hugh Grant’s Daniel. As has oft happened to this tragic heroine, she falls for an attractive new flame Jack, played by Patrick Dempsey. Mark Darcy, (Firth), with all his pride and prejudice triumphantly return to the scene as the blast-from-the-past Mr. Right, a complement to Dempsey’s Mr. Right Now. After a one-night stand with each man, one at a neon, bubblegum pop “music festival” and the other at a christening party, Bridget finds herself pregnant and unsure of the father.
As Bridget struggles to juggle her suitors and distinguish her baby daddy, the separation of viewers from her character begins. Bridget often makes unrealistic decisions that don’t feel like the choices of a rational, self-interested person. In the first film, Bridget was delightfully awkward and apt to idiosyncrasies that frequently resulted in hilariously uncomfortable social situations. In this film, though, these character quirks have been enlarged tenfold to the point that Jones now wanders aimless from mishap to mishap, and the other characters seem one-dimensional and irrelevant, completing the stereotype of a rushed romantic comedy.
Bridget Jones’s Baby missed its opportunity to mature the franchise. The first film was able to make use of tasteful narration by not using it solely to advance the plot. The narration took a leading role in this film, telling instead of showing. The maturity issue was most noticeable in its attempts to modernize. Jones’s handwritten notes about life are replaced with typed commentary complete with o’s substituted for zeros, random capitalization, and outdated attempts at text lingo.
Buried beneath its flaws, there is a potentially hilarious and fun film that shines through from time to time. A movie with genuinely laugh out loud scenes cast with recognizable characters that some viewers have been following since 2001. Bridget Jones’s Baby comedically ties up a 15 year saga; It’s worth a watch for following a series to end or a perfect choice for a girls night in.
This article was co-written with Claire Smith.
Main article image credit: TrailerAddict.com