Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy certainly has its poignant moments, but it’s too bogged down by awkward humour and formulaic setups to capture the full power of its otherwise noble ambitions. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is released in cinemas nationwide on Feb 13.
In her own way, Bridget Jones is an icon of British cinema. The story of a perpetually single working woman finding love through a series of hijinks sounds quite cloying. Yet, her first cinematic outing – Bridget Jones’s Diary – had a sincerity that was hard not to appreciate. It was cheeky, good-natured and ultimately life-affirming. However, subsequent outings have yielded mixed results, as sentimentality has gradually given way to cartoonish antics. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy – the fourth instalment in this franchise – has good, even great merits, but suffers from the same symptoms to a lesser or greater extent.
Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), now in her 50s, has hit a tragic new roadblock. Her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), of whom she finally found a happily ever after in the previous film, was killed while on an expedition in Sudan. Alone once again, Bridget has stepped up to be a single mother to her children, Billy (Casper Knopf) and Mabel (Mila Jankovic). Despite encouragement from her usual circle of friends and edgy inputs from old boss, lover and frenemy Daniel Cleaver (a delightfully scene-chewing Hugh Grant), Bridget struggles to balance the various complications of her newly single life.
Giving the dating scene another go via the dreaded apps, Bridget matches with a man in his late 20s, Roxster (Leo Woodall). Attracted to Roxster but uncertain about the implications of their age gap, Jones finds herself between a rock and a hard place. This is further complicated by budding feelings of attraction from her children’s teacher, the strict but emotionally observant Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Once again, Bridget’s love life is a whirlwind of confusion and silliness, with a sprinkle of resonant themes.
In these themes, Mad About the Boy shines brightest. What separates this entry from the previous films is how it ties the feelings of loneliness that have been the backbone of this franchise to the inevitability of ageing. Just when Bridget had gotten her fairytale ending, life found a way of uprooting it all. Now that she has two kids to look after and is not getting any younger, there’s a melancholic sense of finality in the air – that lightning won’t strike twice when it comes to finding love.
This feeling remains omnipresent throughout the film, coming to the forefront during a new annual tradition: Bridget continues to celebrate Mark’s birthday with her kids instead of marking the anniversary of his death. The second instance of this features a stunning visual scene in which Bridget and her children release balloons in Mark’s honour, demonstrating how hard it really is to let go of one’s sorrow. There’s no shortage of heartfelt sentimentality within this film’s fabric.
Yet the inclusion of such powerful themes makes the film’s reliance on juvenile humour jarring. The film dips its hands into the bag of obvious punchlines and tropes – from contemporary buzzwords to the tired cliché of perfect mums on the school run. Daft, formulaic humour isn’t exactly new for these films – Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was far too goofy for its own good, and while Bridget Jones’s Baby also had moments of contrivance, it was saved by a fun, heartfelt second half.
However, the comedy here often relies on mechanical setups rather than the characters’ plights. The funniest scenes involve the supporting characters reacting to Bridget’s awkward, born-again virgin behaviour. This includes Emma Thompson’s Dr Rawlings, who returns from Bridget Jones’s Baby and steals every scene she’s in. But the humour, as proudly childish as it is, hasn’t aged alongside the characters; thus, what was charming in the original film is now just a bit cringeworthy in the fourth.
Turning to the more dramatic aspects of the story yields better results, as the film explores the weight of grief on both Bridget and her son, Billy, who bottles up his anguished feelings surrounding his father. The film’s best scene involves a campfire and Billy opening up to Mr Wallaker, a stubborn atheist who uses science to affirm Billy’s spiritual feelings. It actualises and examines the many complicated shapes our deepest feelings of loss and anxiety can take. However, this only becomes apparent towards the end of the film, as the plot follows the usual routine of Bridget struggling to comprehend romance on two fronts.
Roxster and Mr Wallaker have little interaction and seem to enter Bridget’s life at different times, making their romantic dynamics with Bridget feel like two separate films stitched together. The reliance on extreme close-ups and lingering shot reverse shot techniques during the film’s most intimate or dramatic scenes only generates a feeling of inauthenticity to the picture, as it proceeds to only dip its toes into the intricacies of its new romantic plotlines rather than embrace the multi-faceted dimensions of finding love as an older woman in a constantly changing world. Zellwegger still carries herself gracefully, rolling with the punches of the material, yet can’t quite save the picture from feelings of schmaltz.
As a 28-year-old man, I acknowledge that I’m not exactly the target audience for a movie like this. Thus, this review is best taken with several spoonfuls of salt. However, I like to think that I still have the capacity to appreciate and empathise with both this film’s central dilemma and its subsequent themes. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy certainly has its poignant moments, but it’s too bogged down by awkward humour and formulaic setups to capture the full power of its otherwise noble ambitions. The original movie, although dated, remains a charismatic film; however, it’s probably time for Bridget Jones to put down her diary.
Follow Us