Bridget Jones's Diary [Collector's Edition]

---

Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »

---

Here's another of those monumental coincidences that can happen in the big, wide, wonderful world of movies. The "New Exclusive DVD Edition" of the 2001 comedy "Bridget Jones's Diary" gets issued in Buena Vista's "Miramax Collector's Series" just three days before the theatrical release of the movie's sequel, 2004's "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." What a happy break for Miramax and BV! Some people have all the luck.

Are there any differences between the new DVD edition of the 2001 release and the old edition that was issued just a year prior? Of course, there are. You wouldn't suspect a conspiracy, would you? Although the new edition features the same audio-video presentation of the movie as before and several of the same extras, it also sports a few additional bonus items, plus a handsome new slipcover for the keep case.

Before we get to the new edition changes, though, let's look back again on the movie. To start things off, think of the horror and tragedy that must come with being a slightly overweight, cigarette-addicted, thirty-two-year-old, single, white female. That's the premise of this romantic comedy from the same British writer, producers, and star (Richard Curtis, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, and Hugh Grant) who brought us "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Notting Hill." But is the premise enough to sustain a ninety-minute movie? It wasn't for me, despite several funny scenes and good performances by Renee Zellweger in the title role and by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in supporting roles. Sadly, given its roots, however, "Bridget Jones's Diary" never fully comes to comedic life, seldom reaches out emotionally, and provides few new insights into the perils of love and dating. "Bridget" was a disappointment, given my appreciation of its antecedents. It's a close call, but ultimately "Bridget" is not a great or even near-great genre film, merely a routine, formulaic one.

This one is based on the best-selling novel by Helen Fielding, based in turn on her highly popular series of newspaper columns, with a plot taken from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." It stars American actress Renee Zellweger as the somewhat plump and paranoid British single, Bridget Jones. Ms. Zellweger had to affect an English accent and gain about thirty pounds for the role, both of which she accomplished nicely. However, I never thought she was anywhere near the size and weight that made her look as unattractive as her character seems to think she is (perhaps the film's comment on some people's misguided sense of self-esteem). Fact is, Bridget is a very pretty woman with intelligence and wit, which is perhaps why, in spite of her lack of self confidence, she is able to interest two handsome men in her life. The men are ably played, as I said, by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. Grant plays Daniel Cleaver, Bridget's boss in a publishing house where Bridget is a PR assistant. Leaving behind his usual shy, stammering, Mr. Nice Guy persona for a welcome change, Grant is still charming as a delightfully roguish cad indifferent to commitment. Firth plays Mark Darcy, at first a stuffy, boring, arrogant barrister, who slowly in the course of the film warms up as a person and warms to Bridget in particular. The author has said that she had Firth in mind for the role of Darcy ever since she saw him in the television production of "Pride and Prejudice," playing, of course, Mr. Darcy.

Anyway, as the movie begins Bridget's love life is in the pits; then, she notices and is noticed by her boss, Daniel. She soon begins an affair with him that before long she sees is going nowhere. Her aim is love and marriage. His aim is avoidance of the words "love" or "marriage." Rejected by Daniel's infidelity, she quits her job and finds a new one in broadcasting, soon becoming a minor television celebrity due to her spunk and candor on a tabloid-type show called "Sit Up Britain."

Zellweger is the best thing about the movie, and if you don't find her admittedly ebullient personality enough to pique your curiosity, as I didn't, you're in for a long haul. She narrates the film as one might be reading a diary, and she's in every scene. There is little plot, and the story is for all intents and purposes a straightforward character study. In this regard, the newspaper-column background of the story and character show through. Perhaps I was slightly prejudiced going in because before the movie I read a few of the newspaper articles that are included on the DVD and found them singularly tedious and unamusing. I was reminded that TV's "Tales of the City" was also taken from a series of newspaper columns that I had read years ago in the San Francisco "Chronicle," but those old stories had an outrageous campiness about them that kept one going back. Maybe this was a British thing, I thought, before watching the picture. Well, the movie turned out better than the newspaper columns, but not enough to maintain my interest for long. As I said, Bridget is the center of attention here, and if we don't take to her, little else works. Zellweger makes her character funny, vulnerable, and sympathetic, but not entirely involving. Bridget is sweet and lovable and smarter than she thinks, but that's about all. Still, as people say about her, they love her "just as she is." The hard part to believe is that before the movie's over she has these two handsome, intelligent guys literally fighting over her in the street.

The cutest parts of the film for me were Bridget's constant worries about her weight and her continual fantasies about how the world views her. Then there is the "Vicars and Tarts" party she attends in the costume of a street hooker, only to find out when she arrives that the costume angle had been called off but nobody told her. It's not only an amusing sequence, it's an effective metaphor for the way she views herself--as a loner and a loser, all her friends happily married or attached to someone else. I also enjoyed her parents (Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent) and their own, parallel marital dilemmas; in fact, I longed to see more of them and less of Bridget as the film wore on. Finally, I found it amusing to see controversial author Salman Rushdie in a cameo part playing himself. None of this was quite enough, however, to make me want to go back and watch the film again.

---

---