- Bridget Jones returns to our screens this week
- Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy will be available on streaming service Peacock from February 13, and in theaters across the UK the day after
- Critics have given their verdict on the fourth film in the franchise
After nine long years, Bridget Jones is almost back on our screens.
Debuting tomorrow on streaming service Peacock – and February 14 in theaters across the UK – Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy sees Renée Zellweger return as everyone’s favorite singleton.
However, and *spoiler alert*, while Bridge may be a single mother of two in this movie, it’s due to tragic circumstances – as the fourth film meets her navigating widowhood, after her husband and human right lawyer Mark Darcy was killed in a landmine accident.
While Darcy (played by Colin Firth) does appear in some scenes, the supporting cast is made up of familiar faces such as Bridget’s friends (Shazzer, Tom and Jude, played by Sally Phillips, James Callis and Shirley Henderson) and parents (Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones), and some new characters – including two new love interests.
Leo Woodall stars as Rockster, a much younger man who Bridget meets on Tinder; while Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Mr. Wallaker, a teacher at Bridget’s children’s school.
And despite being presumed dead in the third movie, Hugh Grant also returns as Bridget’s former boss and lover-turned-friend, Daniel Cleaver.
While early reviewers labelled the fourth movie a “total triumph”, critics have now given their verdict on Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
The Independent – 4/5 – ‘Bridget Jones has finally matured, and more that she’s shown us how human she really is’
‘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. She’s more vulnerable here, more honest, and a touch less defined by her frazzled quirks. 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 who exists beyond Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver.
‘Zellweger, who at this point wears the role like a second skin, never overplays a scene. Bridget is a woman of the people, after all, because she represents how we use performative cheeriness as a defence mechanism. Wine and power ballads take care of the rest.
‘[…] that includes having Hugh Grant swan in for a hilarious couple of scenes, but no more. He’s the olive in the martini. According to the actor, he wrote much of the part himself, including the refreshingly nuanced view of Daniel Cleaver as both an excellent babysitter, and a terrible father. When it comes to Mad About the Boy, it’s less that Bridget Jones has finally matured, and more that she’s shown us how human she really is.’
Empire – 4/5 – ‘A sweet, surprisingly mature story of an imperfect woman’
‘The screenplay, written by Fielding, Abi Morgan and, er, Borat’s Dan Mazer, is missing some of the daft humour of the previous instalments, although Bridget does have a run-in with some dodgy lip-filler. In swapping slapstick for sincerity, the film becomes a tender and perceptive depiction of discovering the potential for joy even while enduring such terrible grief. It’s also refreshing to see an older woman as a mother and a sexual being, and there’s no real judgement regarding her fling with a much younger man.
‘A few nods to the original film, like turquoise cocktails reminiscent of Bridget’s blue soup dinner party, are charming without being laboured. But strip away the cameos and the callbacks and in this possibly final chapter you’ll find a sweet, surprisingly mature story of an imperfect woman letting herself fall in love all over again.
‘The sequel we didn’t know we needed, Mad About The Boy is a heartfelt, charming return to the chaos surrounding the one and only Bridget Jones. You might even shed a few tears.’
The Guardian – 2/5 – ‘Little chemistry between each of the two lead pairings’
‘Though I was willing myself to enjoy this fourth film, about the heroine’s adventure with a younger man, the Bridget Jones series has frankly run out of steam.
‘The jokes have been dialled down to accommodate a contrived and unconvincingly mature “weepie” component but the film becomes sad in the wrong way. The actors are mostly going through the motions, there is so little chemistry between each of the two lead pairings they resemble a panda being forced to mate with a flamingo, and Renée Zellweger’s performance is starting to look eccentric.
‘With the exception of Grant and [Emma] Thompson, really all of the actors are phoning (or rather voice-noting) it in, though this is a function of the material. Zellweger looks as if she’s thinking about something else and Woodall has none of the charm and believable humanity he has shown us before – the scenes here on Hampstead Heath are an uneasy, inadvertent echo of his romantic One Day moments on Primrose Hill. Fans might prefer to remember the previous three films.’
The Hollywood Reporter – ‘Ejiofor is a wonderful addition’
‘What really distinguishes Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, however, is the depth of feeling it brings to the protagonist’s grief and her gradual emergence from it. That goes double for Zellweger’s performance. In a franchise where happy endings are a contractual requirement, it can hardly be considered a spoiler to call the movie comfort-food therapy, showing how even the most devastating loss can make way for the unexpected joy and fulfillment of a reset.
‘Ejiofor is a wonderful addition, his character’s gentle manner, sensitivity and intelligence putting the movie on a more real-world footing that enhances the emotional payoff. This also allows Zellweger’s performance to get beyond Bridget’s exaggerated quirks and find depth in the yearning that has partly defined the character from the start — without making her an anti-feminist dinosaur, incomplete without a man.’
Variety – ‘More like a hearts-and-flowers finale’
‘That said, I wish “Mad About the Boy” took more aggressive fun in plugging Bridget into the fads and tropes of the present day. The movie, by design, has a sentimental middle-aged softness to it. It’s the first “Bridget Jones” movie to be released on a streaming platform (in this case, Peacock; that’s right, no theatrical in the U.S.), and it’s also the first one that feels like it belongs there.
‘If Bridget can gallivant with a doe-eyed stud 25 years her junior, then surely she’d be up for the sort of wild and disheveled, drunken and crazy-stupid, delightfully embarrassing antics that powered the winningly debauched Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), the criminally underrated Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), and the just-nutty-enough Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016). But that, alas, is not the kind of movie this is. It’s not another unhinged Bridget bash – more like a hearts-and-flowers finale.
‘When she meets Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the science teacher at William’s school, he’s so diffident that we’re not at all sure this is meant to blossom into anything. But Ejiofor’s sly performance is one of the film’s more effective tricks, as is the slow-groove evolution of this brain-meets-reformed-ditz romance.
‘Hugh Grant is on hand as Daniel, the venerable modelizer who calls Bridget “Jones,” and every moment of his acid-dipped cynicism is welcome. Mad About the Boy, however, is more touching than bracing. It’s got everything you want in a Bridget Jones movie but the madness.
Vulture – ‘The film really shines in reuniting Bridget with her faithful friend group’
‘Despite two decades of anxiety about being of a certain age, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy finds our shambolic protagonist having achieved her heteronormative happily-ever-after. She married dashing if emotionally constipated human rights attorney Mark, with whom she has two children, son Billy (Casper Knopf) and daughter Mabel (Mila Jankovic), as well as an adorable row house in North London. At 51, she’s hit the milestones she was so worried about, only to find herself single again anyway – and not because of her drinking, weight, oft-cited verbal incontinence, or any of the other qualities she’s been convinced were holding her back.
‘The romantic elements of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy are sweet, but also the most predictable (while other storylines, like Bridget’s hiring of an upsettingly perfect nanny played by Nico Parker, or a scene involving an angry neighbor played by Isla Fisher, feel like unfinished fragments).
‘Where the film really shines is in reuniting Bridget with her faithful friend group (Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, and James Callis), her withering gynecologist (Emma Thompson), and, of course, with Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), the red flag-laden lothario who represents everything Bridget knew she shouldn’t be attracted to.’
Radio Times – 4/5 – ‘A story that maturely handles the difficulties of grief’
‘Mad About the Boy isn’t a film that wallows in the maudlin for too long. Reluctantly joining Tinder, Bridget enters the world of online romance, experiencing ‘matches’ and ghosting, and all the other things that go with dating apps.
‘No question, after 2016’s limp third outing, Bridget Jones’s Baby, this feels like the franchise is back on song. Whisper it quietly, but it may even be the best Bridget Jones movie to date – perhaps because both the characters and the returning cast are having a blast.
‘With Zellweger effortless once more in the central role, Grant is also on outrageous form as Cleaver, who – when he isn’t romancing poets/models – is still making “saucy” suggestions to “Bridge”. Emma Thompson is witheringly good as our heroine’s gynaecologist and Colin Firth’s cameo appearance will, frankly, bring on the sniffles.
‘With a story that spans sun-dappled summer to snowy winter, showing London at its most charming, this is a film that really knows when to deliver the emotional moments. One scene – involving the release of balloons to mark a significant birthday – is true lump-in-the-throat stuff in a story that maturely handles the difficulties of grief.’
IndieWire – Grade B+ – ‘Still wonderfully Bridget’
‘Based on Fielding’s third Bridget Jones book (first published in 2013), the Michael Morris-directed feature is the best sequel yet, likely because it does away with all that push-pull (to tragic ends, sadly) that framed the romance between Bridget and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). This entry finds Bridget at a (believable) crossroads, and while she’s grown up, learned from her mistakes, and evolved, she’s also still wonderfully Bridget.
‘That alone is worth celebrating, preferably en masse with the rest of the Bridget faithful, which makes the choice to not release the film in U.S. theaters so terribly painful (the rest of the world will get it in theaters). Bridget and Morris’ film deserve to be seen on the big screen, all the better with a packed house of devoted fans and some snuck-in booze. Alas, Mad About the Boy can at least inspire some home-viewing parties (at least the snacks will be cheaper).
‘Zellweger, as ever, is sterling in the role. There is no Bridget Jones without Renée Zellweger, and the force of her performance and obvious admiration for the role do plenty to skate over any off-kilter beats (a few odd subplots, Bridget’s total lack of concern around money, etc.) with effervescence and pluck. Loving Bridget means wanting to see her succeed. With Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, she does that and more.’
