Jones is back and in fine form
Screen
BRIDGET JONES’S BABY (8/10) Gateway, Musgrave, Pavilion, Suncoast Review: Patrick Compton
WELCOME back, Bridget Jones. Some of us have missed your amiable ditheriness and chaotic love life since you last visited us in the inferior The Edge of Reason 12 years ago.
And welcome back, too, to a lean Renée Zellweger, who has been absent from the big screen for the last six years.
That’s a ridiculously long absence for an actress of her comic talents.
The good news is that the Jones/Zellweger combo is in excellent form, helped in no small part by a witty script from a collective of writers led by Helen Fielding, the author of the best-selling book and the original newspaper column, and actress Emma Thompson, who has cheekily written herself a brilliant cameo as Bridget’s droll doctor.
There’s also a talented coalition of comic actors clustered around Zellweger, who leads the way with fortitude as chaos once again invades her life.
Quite a lot has changed since we last bade farewell to Bridget, not least the demise of the devilishly handsome cad, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), lost, apparently dead, in some distant foreign jungle.
The closest we get to Daniel is gazing at his photograph, which hovers over the congregation during a memorial service at the start of the film.
It’s an opportunity for Bridget to giggle at the clutch of East European dolly birds bidding him a tearful farewell, and for her to lock eyes, once again, with her smouldering former boyfriend, straight arrow advocate Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).
In many ways, the film’s opening half is the most entertaining, with a breakout performance by Sarah Solemani, who plays a very naughty Miranda, the sexy presenter at Bridget’s cable TV news station where she works as a producer.
Miranda is determined to get Bridget laid, a feat she achieves when she takes her mate to a typically muddy rock festival (Glastonbury?) where Bridget falls for the charms of a dishy online dating expert (Patrick Dempsey), who gets her hot and bothered after extracting her from a pool of mud.
Within 48 hours, Bridget has another slice of amorous luck when she collides with a tiddly Mark at a christening.
It’s not a spoiler to reveal that passion can bring consequences. The movie’s title tells you that. So, a few months down the line, Bridget finds herself “up the duff ”. Who, one wonders, is the father?
This third edition of the franchise is arguably the best, certainly as good as the first. As mentioned, the script is good, we don’t get dragged away from London on some exotic quest, and we renew acquaintance with Bridget’s family (Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent, reliably fine as Bridget’s mom and dad) and whacky friends.
The humour is broad, the slapstick is sometimes inspired, particularly in a wonderful scene towards the end when Bridget is manhandled through a revolving door at the hospital, and the overall effect is a good laugh and a feeling of bonhomie as you emerge from the cinema.
Will there be another sequel?
The path is open, but perhaps now is the time to bid the lovable Jones goodbye.