Bridget Jones's Baby
Don't Go! Regressive return of a less hopeful heroine.
Erm...Bridget has a baby.
How do you solve a problem like Bridget Jones? It’s a conundrum apparently still unresolved after 15 years and two films, so Bridget Jones’s Baby brings Renee Zellweger’s beleaguered Brit back to the big screen. Since the Diary days, the world has changed dramatically. Romance is now more Tinder than tender; more 50 Shades than Four Weddings; more choking than charming. Does it all leave Baby in the corner?
Bridget is now 43, successful professionally, single and childless; so largely in the same state as she was aged 32. This time out, she stumbles into pregnancy. After two sexual encounters in a week (insufficiently protected only by out-of-date, biodegradable condoms), she cannot decipher who the father is. It’s either the handsome spawn of the returning Mr Darcy (Colin Firth, Kingsman) or newcomer and American dating expert, Jack Qwant (Patrick “Dr McDreamy” Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy). After that, the way you envisage it playing out is almost exactly the way it does.
Bridget is now 43, successful professionally, single and childless; so largely in the same state as she was aged 32. This time out, she stumbles into pregnancy. After two sexual encounters in a week (insufficiently protected only by out-of-date, biodegradable condoms), she cannot decipher who the father is. It’s either the handsome spawn of the returning Mr Darcy (Colin Firth, Kingsman) or newcomer and American dating expert, Jack Qwant (Patrick “Dr McDreamy” Dempsey, Grey’s Anatomy). After that, the way you envisage it playing out is almost exactly the way it does.
While Bridget’s problems are largely the same, sadly, she is not. Back in 2001, she was a woman empowered. Occasionally clumsy, but consistently charming; with her feet often in her mouth, but always (eventually) landing those same slobbery feet on solid ground. She was normal, self-effacingly insightful, smart, and funny. That is why we loved her. Every situation she found herself in, it felt like she was in control. Her life was her own to screw up, but also her own to repair. Re-watching it in preparation for Baby, I again laughed, frequently; willing her to success and comforted knowing she’d find it. Diary (perhaps because it was based on the 203-year-old Pride and Prejudice) has survived the test of time. The same cannot be said for Bridget herself.
Her vibrant rejection of being overlooked, undervalued and underwhelmed by men is long gone. Frustratingly, the ones with willies seem to have whittled away her wit and self-worth. The well-meaning but flailing Mr Darcy pads around like a kind of stern, entitled iguana yet she is seduced by his nearly-divorced-status and sudden claims of affection without a mere moment’s thought. Bereft of her bite, Bridget looks like she’s given up fighting the battle against mediocre, self-involved men that so characterised the original. With that, Baby becomes an act of nostalgia; a frayed tie up to an increasingly depressing “faux-mance” that would have been better left to our imaginations at the end of Diary.
Her vibrant rejection of being overlooked, undervalued and underwhelmed by men is long gone. Frustratingly, the ones with willies seem to have whittled away her wit and self-worth. The well-meaning but flailing Mr Darcy pads around like a kind of stern, entitled iguana yet she is seduced by his nearly-divorced-status and sudden claims of affection without a mere moment’s thought. Bereft of her bite, Bridget looks like she’s given up fighting the battle against mediocre, self-involved men that so characterised the original. With that, Baby becomes an act of nostalgia; a frayed tie up to an increasingly depressing “faux-mance” that would have been better left to our imaginations at the end of Diary.
Baby is made slightly depressing since it barely scrapes through the Bechdel Test (which assesses how well women are represented in film). Bridget is consistently painted as the irresponsible adult, while the inept men seem to get credit for their mere presence. At one point she sobs and literally asks for a “knight in shining armour” (of course, one appears). Without a shred of irony, a Pussy Riot-style feminist group gratingly known as “Poonani” thank their lawyer (Mr Darcy) by writing “we luv you Mr Darcy” on their breasts and bearing them on live TV. When Bridget’s mother bleats, “There’s a march for women’s rights – honestly, do we need any more rights?” it is less of a gag and more a description of how the film’s representation of Bridget is painfully backwards. It goes on and on this way until the end, (*not-really-a-spoiler alert*) when Bridget finally has a baby, locks down a man and the music gets all twinkly. Then - and apparently only then - does she seem content with her life. It destroys the natural conclusion from Diary that the Bridget of old would never have arbitrarily arrived at such a conventional conclusion in the face of such churlish, childish male choices.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of amusing, slapstick moments; even if like a kind of broken, comedic Pez dispenser, it clicks out the same generational stereotypes and relationship jokes last seen in a dusty box labelled “90s TV Sitcoms – Do Not Open”. The familiarity is often funny, and it is light, jovial and mostly harmless. It's just unfortunate that it's Bridget Jones behind it all - she used to represent so much more.
You have probably already erased Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason from your memory, allowing Bridget Jones’s Diary to end the Bridget Jones story. For Bridget's sake, keep it that way and don’t go to Bridget Jones’s Baby. Let her lead a much richer life in the majesty of your own imagination.
Nevertheless, there are plenty of amusing, slapstick moments; even if like a kind of broken, comedic Pez dispenser, it clicks out the same generational stereotypes and relationship jokes last seen in a dusty box labelled “90s TV Sitcoms – Do Not Open”. The familiarity is often funny, and it is light, jovial and mostly harmless. It's just unfortunate that it's Bridget Jones behind it all - she used to represent so much more.
You have probably already erased Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason from your memory, allowing Bridget Jones’s Diary to end the Bridget Jones story. For Bridget's sake, keep it that way and don’t go to Bridget Jones’s Baby. Let her lead a much richer life in the majesty of your own imagination.
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