Dir. Sharon McGuire, UK, 2001, 97 mins
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth
Review by Carol Allen
All the elements that made BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY such a fun read are in the film - only more so. It makes us laugh with recognition from the word go because we all know it's so true, whatever age we are and like all truly good comedy, it has that touch of sadness in it.
Author Helen Fielding in tandem with top TV drama writer Andrew Davies and Richard "Notting Hill" Curtis have shaped and expanded the material into a really good film script, which keeps the freshness of the original while giving it a stronger dramatic narrative.
Much as I would have liked Bridget to have been played by a British actress, I can't fault Renee Zellweger on either accent or performance. Plump, wholesome and attractive rather than beautiful, she's someone we can relate to as a real woman, with wobbly self esteem, constantly measuring herself against the world, a touch of desperation as aged 30 starts to moves in the direction of 35 or more, and a tendency to open mouth before brain is engaged. Hugh Grant, who was at this time making a move towards playing cads rather than gauche upper class twits, is devilishly urbane and sexily sexist as the boss/boyfriend who lets her down, while Colin Firth does a contemporary re-creation of his "Pride and Prejudice" role as the solid, dependable Mark Darcy (the same name's deliberate - Fielding is a fan of Jane Austen), who wears his stiff upper lip all over his face and has the Englishman's talent for tactlessness. At one point he refers to Bridget as "that verbally incontinent spinster", not realising she's right behind him. A good supporting cast includes Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as Bridget's parents and guest appearances by Salman Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer in a hilarious publisher's launch party from hell sequence.
"Bridget Jones" is the best type of truly English comedy - humour with heart but any soppiness kept firmly at bay by the national characteristic of self deprecation and the addition of just a touch of acid.
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