Bridget Jones lives next to a hospital, right, so why does it take her so long to get to a maternity ward when she goes into labour. It doesn’t make sense
Here’s a thing. Bridget Jones lives on Bedale Street, close enough to Borough Market that she could swan dive from her bedroom window and land in a basket of organic, gluten-free sourdough, or one of those massive iron pans filled with Ethiopian curry.
Directly across the road from her flat is Guy’s Hospital (the tallest hospital in the world, and so fairly difficult to miss) but when she goes into labour Colin Firth carries her all over the city in search of a delivery room.
Either the film is deliberately misrepresenting the geography of London for the purposes of plot and comedy, or the character of Bridget Jones would sooner be willing to have her baby in a back alley in Chelsea than have it scooped out of her by an NHS nurse.
While both seem likely, it’s the former that’s true: Colin Firth gracelessly hauling a pregnant Renée Zellweger over a bridge is the slapstick highlight of this warm and familiar-feeling rom-com, in which a middle-aged Bridget finds herself single and bearing the child of one of her two suitors. Did she catch it from Mister Darcy, the forever orbiting love of her life? Or is it the spawn of this new guy, a suave-as-balls American billionaire whom she drunkenly pegged in a yurt?
The love triangle brings the film’s melodramatic clout, but it’s in the peripheral that the biggest laughs are found, as Bridget struggles to stay relevant in a workplace quickly being transformed by interloping hipsters and teenage social media managers. Ironically the gags in this arena feel a little outdated themselves, taking aim at Shoreditch stereotypes that expired a few years back, but they more or less hit the mark.
This is a funny movie, certainly the funniest of the three, and while modern Bridget is far less naive, she’s still an amusing on-screen idiot. She’s decently portrayed as being in control of her situation too, rather than a preggers trophy to be squabbled over by the leading men. Emma Thompson puts in a brilliantly droll performance as Bridget’s gynecologist, while Sarah Solemani plays the mate eager to nudge her away from self-imposed spinsterdom and towards all that good yurt-based sexual adventure. And if you were wondering, Hugh Grant’s character, in a darkly funny moment, is immediately written off simply as having died somewhere.
An enjoyable bit of rom-com nostalgia, Bridget Jones’s Baby is a relic in the fondest sense of the word. It’s every inch as entertaining as the original.