The Unseen Movie Review

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Renée Zellweger piles the pounds back on to return to the slightly chubby, surprisingly hard to dislike role that brought her to most people’s attention before she turned into a stick insect for Chicago. The last film saw her wandering happily off, after her hapless attempts at love, with Colin Firth’s bumbling lawyer, and it seemed like the British Carrie Bradshaw had finally found her perfect man. It was a nice, neat, simple and entertaining romantic comedy.

The original movie was three years ago now, but this one picks up only a few weeks later. The book on which this film is based, however, came out yonks ago, and the newspaper columns that was based around are a good decade old. Are people still interested in Bridget? Even her creator, writer Helen Fielding, has moved on to the sexier chick-lit spy heroine Olivia Joules, the star of her bestselling (though critically panned) novel from earlier this year.

This, of course, is part of the point of the film. Is Bridget’s hunky beau still interested in having a slightly dumpy, utterly neurotic girlfriend? The fact that he has a sexy new secretary with few qualms about stealing someone else’s boyfriend is hardly going to help Bridget’s self-confidence or faith in her man. When the sleazily charming Hugh Grant reappears as Bridget’s ex-boss (and ex-love), matters are bound only to be complicated further.

So, in short, this is much like this summer’s Shrek 2 – what happens to the overweight central character who finds their perfect partner after their fairytale comes true? Again like Shrek 2, the message of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason is a simple (and identical) one – in love, act like yourself, because that’s what they fell in love with in the first place. As soon as Bridget starts having doubts, she starts distrusting her ideal man; with the doubts and her changed attitude to the relationship come all the problems.

Thankfully, Zellweger has managed to recreate the ditzy central character perfectly – despite the last few years spent winning Oscars and starving herself – and Grant and Firth are the perfect back-up. Cameo and supporting appearances from top British talent like Jim Broadbent, Celia Imrie, Jessica Stephenson and Sally Philips all add to the sense of cosy familiarity.

But then again, this is a Working Title film, made by the same company and co-written by the same person that was behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually and the like – of course it’s going to feel cosy and familiar, because all their films are basically the same. That is the whole point. If you aren’t into this sort of romantic comedy, replete with bumblingly nervous Brits and embarrassingly unlikely situations, you aren’t going to enjoy it one iota. But if you’ve enjoyed the other films from this stable, you’ll have a great time with this one too. It’s hardly brilliant, but at least it has the decency to be funny and endearing. Much like Bridget herself…

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM