A diary could theoretically be a very personal thing and one you’d never share with anyone else. That’s what it should be, because if the objective is to share it with other people, then what you’re really trying to write is a blog or a newsletter, and since Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in an era when "blog" was just a funny mispronunciation of a piece of wood or swamp, the more accurate title for the film, and the book it was based off of, would be Bridget Jones’s Minute-by-Minute Emotional Broadcast. The romantic comedy seems to have no purpose beyond giving some shallow satisfaction to overweight women by casting Renee Zellweger as a plump(er) young professional torn between the affections of two British heartthrobs (Hugh Grant and Colin Firth). “Look,” it seems to say, “Renee isn’t a super-slim protagonist and yet she’s in high demand with two men Hollywood has trained you to adore!” It works though, and all while paying homage to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, that chick flick in literary form that young girls swoon over when they inevitably read it in high school.
Bridget Jones’s Diary was yet another tentpole in Hugh Grant’s long line of films where he plays the confident but affable male lead who dotes on the woman he loves even as he fails in reigning the chauvinistic tendencies every woman is afraid men suffer from. In this case, he’s the boss of Bridget Jones (Zellweger) and finds himself smitten with her inability to make a sentence that doesn’t completely embarrass her whenever he’s near. The awkwardness turns to flirtation and soon the two are spending romantic weekends. The romance comes to a crushing halt when Bridget discovers he’s not the perfect, faithful man he seems, and suddenly his story about Mark Darcy (Firth) stealing his fiancee’s innocence fails to hold up. This works out fine for Bridget as she’s gradually come to admire the softspoken nature of Darcy, and he seems equally taken with her, even though they have a hard time saying as much and doing so at a time that isn’t inconvenient for one or the other. Finally, Bridget must make the choice between Mr. Imperfect and Mr. Perfect, and you’ll never guess which one wins out.
It seems as if in an attempt to bottle this for a broad audience, the author, Helen Fielding, did away with any sense of subtlety and just did whatever she thought single professional females in their 30s would want to read. Basing her film off that, Director Sharon Maguire approaches the subject matter with equal tact and resorting to cheap gags and painfully witless dialogue that lacks any crackle in the rapid-fire exchanges of verbal barbs and in chemistry of the three leads. The romance plays out in such a dreary and obvious fashion that made all the more insufferable by Fielding’s insistence on giving Firth’s character the last name of Darcy.
Here’s a hint ladies and gentleman, if you ever want there to be any sort of suspense as to who the girl is going to choose, don’t give the imminent victor the same name Jane Austen gave to her immortalized stubborn suitor in her most famous novel. Talk about declaring the race over before it’s even begun. Consequently, the entire affair just feels like it’s ticking down to a finale we knew was coming the second the character’s name was mentioned. What’s worse is that it steals the device of Elizabeth initially suspecting Mr. Darcy broke up the marriage of another couple, for no real purpose than to scrounge up some unearned tension between characters lacking in depth. Fielding never fleshed out her characters beyond two-dimensional stereotypes and instead relied on the audience being giddy having noticed the parallels between the film and the piece of literature.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The disc is littered with some indulgences including an audio commentary with Director Maguire, a featurette on the vast popularity of the novel and film, lip service to the silent suffering of single women, behind the scenes pieces with both a general focus and one looking at the make-up artists for the film, deleted scenes, trailers, and little bit of translation for the American audiences that felt lost by all of the clever British sayings whose meanings are quite easy to divine from the context.
"Bridget Jones's Diary" is on sale July 19, 2011 and is rated R. Comedy, Drama. Directed by Sharon Maguire. Written by Helen Fielding. Starring Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Renee Zellweger.
