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| Image credit:YouTube |
I’ve been thinking this for a while, but it really has become rather
pronounced during the last couple of years that we are, sadly, living in an age
of cinema where studios are not opting for original films. No. It’s the age of
the reboot, the remake, and the sequel. I don’t want to completely have at it
and say this is a bad thing; we’ve had some highly successful remakes hit
cinemas within the last few years: Ghostbusters,
Mad Max Fury Road, but there have been a number that loudly answer that
question of ‘why not?’
With this in mind, let’s consider Bridget
Jones’s Baby…
The film begins with Bridget spending her 43rd birthday in
her flat alone. While her friends have all gotten married and had kids, Bridget
has flourished in her career as a broadcast editor and hit her ideal weight.
But as 43 hits her hard she decides to go on a girls’ weekend to a music
festival where, after a few drinks, she hooks up with a handsome billionaire
(Patrick Dempsey). Not a week later Mark Darcy comes back into her life at a christening
and the two rekindle an old flame. It’s all fun until Bridget discovers that
she’s pregnant and with no clue as to which man the father is.
Honestly, I remember seeing the trailer for this in cinemas and getting
angry at it. Why, why, why would you
reboot Bridget Jones? The first was
one perfect and the sequel successfully pulled through, but to bring about
round three after all this time?! I was dubious.
But tonight I got curious and discovered it was on Netflix so I took the
plunge. While it’s kind of nice to see the old gang back together, Bridget Jones’s Baby does not scale the heights of its predecessors even remotely.
The story is fine; engaging while at the same time providing a lot of cringe
comedy and ethical conundrums that trigger the feels, but a large portion of
it felt clumsily written with little love or attachment put into it. A lot of
the comedy is forced, the film’s reflection of contemporary culture is coarse
to the point of grating, and there’s an almost cringing generational gap that
creates this weird discord between the old characters and the new.
As it’s had to imagine Bridget Jones at forty, it didn’t really come as
a disappointment that Zellweger seemed to struggle a little with falling back
into the habit and even lovely Colin Firth seemed more wooden than usual with
his revisitation of Darcy, though he did warm up over the course of the film
and was back to being gorgeous by the end. Where new life (for want of a better
word) comes into the piece is with Patrick Dempsey’s character. However, he’s a
charming and smooth-talking guy slightly reminiscent of Daniel Cleaver, so
nothing overly hot and fresh.
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| Image credit: Time Out |
It’s sad to say, but I feel that Bridget
Jones hasn’t stood the test of time. The gags in this film were overdone to
the point of just being uncomfortable, schadenfreude cringe humour and the
characters prove to be a little worse for wear. I take comfort in knowing that
I can always go to my shelf and enjoy the delightful quirks of the original.
Director: Sharon Maguire, 2016
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Colin
Firth, Patrick Dempsey, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Sally Phillips, Shirley
Henderson, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Sarah Solemani, Joanna Scanlan, Celia Imrie, Ed
Sheeran, and Emma Thompson
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