I finally figured out this movie. Took a while. Longer than it should have. I just couldn’t figure out why they killed off Colin Firth and made Renée Zellweger into a cougar, while kinda pretending that was reasonable. Renée Zellweger is 56. Fifty-six. I suppose she was only fifty-five when this film was shot. But still. Literally twice the age of her lover in this film, Leo Woodall. And she has grade-school kids as if she’s, like 39 or 45 tops. But she isn’t. And one can tell because none of her friends look 39-45. They definitely all look over 50.
And then there’s the franchise cad, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), who is suddenly a reformed substitute grandfather, quite the about-face from the lecherous sleaze he’s been playing here. I know these characters. I’ve seen three films with them; this doesn’t make sense.
WHAT IS GOING ON???!!!
Ah, I get it. The Spider-Verse. Instead of a fourth film in the series, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is actually more of an alternative universe take on Bridget Jones. This, of course, explains perfectly how the film happily shed Colin Firth and how Bridget Jones still can’t cook and how she might be only a bit of a cougar, say ten years older than her prospective beau. And how she’s still up for playing the dating game rather than sitting at home with a good book or concentrating on raising her children, which is a full-time job at their ages. She’s got time and energy to date a 28-year-old guy with no set commitments? Puh-lease.
I didn’t like the first half of this film. Mad About the Boy set up all these things that seemed wrong to me, like the disappearance of her husband and the reversal of Daniel Cleaver, all to pair up Bridget Jones (Zellweger) with a f***boy. Seriously, how does one go from Colin Firth to f***boy without losing one’s mind? Answer: Alternative Universe.
Bridget is piecing her life back together after the sudden death of Mark Darcy (Firth, who is in his 60s, btw). Oh, I completely forgot – this is a Jane Austen adaptation isn’t it? I wonder what Miss Austen would think about the term “f***boy;” she was certainly well aware of -the type- when she wrote Sense and Sensibility. Aiming for comedy where nine is to be had, Bridget takes her kids to the park and gets stuck in a tree where is rescued by a fireman (Woodall). Despite the incongruity of their circumstances, they become sex partners.
I don’t really have any problem with that, so long as both parties are consenting adults. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have a sexual relationship with somebody 
literally half your age, but I’m not gonna tell it can’t happen.
The problem here is that the film, which should be about a grieving widow and her attempts to cope with her single-mother world becomes instead a comic romp that isn’t terribly believable. For one thing, Bridget Jones is still kind of a doof and a screw-up. She always will be. She attracts the guy who smooths out her wrinkles, not calls attention to them. We are genuinely happy for her when Roxster (Woodall, yes, quite literally “ROCK STAR”) arrives in the nick of time at a pool party to save a drowning person, get out with a wet shirt clinging to his developed torso and immediately kiss Bridget in front of an elder congregation. We’re not so keen on the part where he ghosts her shortly thereafter, although that seemed far more likely than the first thing.
With the tone of sexual levity and blissful unawareness, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy feel for 90 minutes like Bridget is in complete denial of her life. It is only when she steps up a relationship with her kids’ science teacher, Scott (Chiwetel Ejiofor), that this film becomes the film it ought to be where a struggling middle-aged housewife has to figure out how to parent, love, and live with her grief all at the same time. For me, it was welcome, but too-little-too-late.
There was once a sad widow called Jones
Residing in surreality zones
Dating? Not sage
That guys’ half her age
But nice to know 60 ain’t too old to jump bones
Rated R, 124 Minutes
Director: Michael Morris
Writer: Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer, Abi Morgan
Genre: Pretending cougar-ism is funny
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who only saw the last half
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who only saw the first half
