Mad About The Boy: Bridget Jones review – perfectly timed with hun culture
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy review: the return of the UK’s favourite singleton couldn’t have hit the cultural zeitgeist better. In a new era of feminism, Bridget finally should be embraced by us all, whether we relate to her or not, says Adam Bloodworth ★★★★
Ah, Bridget Jones and her absolutely enormous panties! The return of a cultural heroine who has defined 21st century feminism will surely blow away the February misery – but hidden under the piles of Bridget’s undies surely lies the question, does she still resonate with women today?
Amelia Granger, head of film for Working Title, summed up the knotty complexity of modern day feminism in press material ahead of the film’s release. “Because the Bridget Jones films have been categorized as romantic comedies there was this initial misconception that Bridget was desperate to find romantic love,” she said. “In truth, though, what Bridget has always been seeking is self-love and self-acceptance.”
But haven’t most of us at some point felt desperate to find romance too, if we’re really honest with ourselves? That’s why we have always loved Bridget. We don’t love her for her pursuit of self-love, we love her because she is imperfect and entirely relatable.
Hun culture is a 2020s cultural phenomena Jones could never have seen coming – and it perfectly chimes with Bridget in Mad About The Boy. The general premise, as surmised by Vice, is that huns are “the most relatable women in Britain.” Rather than the untouchable glamour of the ‘90s IT girls who fell out of clubs wearing Prada, huns are everyday women, happy to pose with a cheap glass of prosecco and admit their dress is from Primark. Hun culture has become popular because we all inhabit elements of it. Relatable imperfection is being celebrated, whether through our dating lives or our penchant for a cheeseburger and bottle of wine on a Monday. Unlike when the first three Bridget films came out, now is her time.
Director Michael Morris, who only has one other feature film under his belt, goes one further than putting Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy out at the right cultural moment (after significant delays due to the Hollywood strikes). He’s attempted to create a new genre by directing a rom-com about grief, and while the two aren’t obvious bedfellows, Mad About The Boy tackles adult themes worth investing in without scrimping on fun and frivolity.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy makes the singleton feel more relevant than ever
Jones, now in her fifties, has two young children but has been widowed after her husband, the human rights lawyer Mark Darcy, passed away. Jim Broadbent returns as Bridget’s bubbly dad, Firth as the stoic patriarch in flashback scenes, and Renee Zelweger’s fine-tuned Bridget (she has played the role for over 20 years) is better than ever with the benefit of age and experience. Forced into having difficult conversations with her children who are trying to comprehend the passing of their father, it is credit to Zelweger that Mad About The Boy feels so ripe with truth.
Abi Morgan, original Bridget author Helen Fielding and Dan Mazer have collaborated on a script that has some incredibly evocative images about grief and the ways we cope.
Around the seriousness, Morris has recreated tropes from the other Bridget films for nostalgia’s sake. Jones goes to a garden party, a dinner party where she’s asked why she’s still single and there’s the inevitable public gaffes where she trips up in front of men she fancies. None of it is bad, but there is a sense of knowing what’s coming next; it sometimes leaves the film with a paint-by-numbers feel, these scenes interspersed with Morris’ original grief portraits: heart-bursting montages of Bridget’s friends rallying around her to make her feel less lonely, and endless tracking shots of Zellweger looking horribly vulnerable and tender.
As for the sexy men, there are more than Colin Firth could fend off in a month of limp-wristed fisticuffs in fountains. Hugh Grant returns in a bravely unsexy turn as ageing Daniel Cleaver. He’s still sleazy but now it’s completely charmless. One Day’s Leo Woodhall further establishes himself as one of Britain’s most charismatic new leading men as Bridget’s dashing young lover Boxster. Renée Zellweger’s sex scenes with the 27-year-old Brit are raunchier than anything we’ve seen of Bridget before – by a country mile. Chiwetel Ejiofor could charm the pants off the staunchest grumpy guts as Mr Wallaker, a teacher who has more to offer Bridget than good grades for her children, though his protagonist lacks bite. That’s kind of the point, but you get the feeling he’d be a bit boring over a pint, and that’s a bit of a problem.
It’s fair to say this is the end of an era, unless they bring her back, which I’d be all for. But if this is the end, prepare multiple boxes of tissues and equal amounts of wine.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is in cinemas from 14 February