Mad About the Boy is the best Bridget Jones sequel yet – and Renée Zellweger remains sensational Zellweger’s Bridget is now a widow – and romanced by both Leo Woodall’s younger man and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s kindly teacher – and this sequel, adapted from Helen Fielding’s third book in her series of novels, is vulnerable, honest and very funny.
And it’s in that sense of ownership – that she’s our Bridget – that her latest cinematic venture, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, succeeds where previous sequels have fallen face-first, perhaps into a musical festival mud pit à la Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016).
That’s thanks, in part, to the fact it’s based on Fielding’s third book in the series, which draws from the author’s own experiences of grief in order to explore a Bridget (Renée Zellweger) who exists beyond Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).
Screenwriters Fielding, Dan Mazer, and Abi Morgan may strive for relevance by squeezing in an episode of “ghosting” (ie not texting back), yet Bridget and Roxster’s age-gap romance – like last year’s Anne Hathaway-fronted The Idea of You – puts aside “cougar” sensationalism to engage sincerely with the idea of navigating love while at different stages in life.
And, sure, both male leads are handed a scene in which circumstance forces them to remove their shirts, all while Bridget’s eyes look like they’re about to pop out of her head (“ding f***ing dong” as the saying goes), but the Bridget-isms here work with a little bit of a wink and nod, so that even the inevitable appearance of the “big knickers” doesn’t play too overtly as calculated nostalgia.
