Coming on 25 years since she first started keeping that diary, this February, we got the final curtain on the chronicles of our tragically hilarious Bridget in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
In the latest and last instalment, we watch the recently widowed Bridget (Renée Zellweger) struggling to comprehend how to move on with life four years after losing her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). Battling with her grief and guilt, Bridget’s friends and overly involved gynaecologist, Doctor Rawlings (played perfectly by Emma Thompson) beg her to one, go back to work, and two, get laid. Pursued by a younger man on Tinder (that’s right, Bridget has come a long way) whilst she simultaneously develops an attraction to her son’s Science teacher, the newest Bridget Jones is just as romance packed as the others in the tetralogy.
Mad About the Boy continues the interesting trend we saw in 2024’s ‘The Idea of You’ and ‘Babygirl’, as Bridget is swept up into a passionate romance with the dreamy twenty-eight-year-old, Roxster (Leo Woodall), feeding the increasingly apparent ‘younger man’ fantasy of Gen-X women. Bridget speaks to mothers everywhere as we watch her battle with her ‘mum-guilt’ when she re-enters the workplace, and her overall struggle to do it all on her own. We also watch Bridget navigate a relationship that lacks commitment and definition, a peril modern young women know all too well.
The finale of Bridget Jones is heavier than the others, reflecting the increasing gravity of the decisions you are forced to make in life as you get older. That said, the movie has plenty of the hallmark British humour, Daniel Cleaver’s (Hugh Grant) outrages-ness and nods to the original film, from blue soup cocktails to the sheer long sleeve top. In short, you’ll laugh, and you’ll cry, even if the latest Bridget Jones is cheesy as ever (no one is called Roxster in real life, for example).
In a seamless continuation of the first three films, we watch Bridget seeking connection as her charmingly awkward self, but this time, the film speaks to finding joy and acceptance in the midst of grief whilst acknowledging that the ones we love never really leave us. A must watch for fans of romantic comedies.
