Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy – The blockbuster Britain needs and deserves right now

I love Bridget Jones. Having only just watched the series in November last year, I quickly fell head over heels for her utterly endearing clumsiness. She reminds me of my mum, she reminds me of me, and she reminds of so many people I know. She is a hero to me and so many other people around the world, especially to the Brits. My excitement was sky-high for this latest and (I hope) final entry in her cinematic journey and it did not disappoint, for it is my favourite in the series.

Of the original three films, Bridget Jones’s Baby was somewhat controversially my favourite for how it seemed to look at Bridget’s life in a far more mature way than we had seen before. If the first two entries are loveable, silly romcom adventures, especially The Edge of Reason, then Baby was the one that simply let Bridget be. The comedy was found in how her inherent vivaciousness and attempts to be ‘normal’ were so utterly relatable to the way all of us attempt similar things. The film grew up with her, abandoning the silly adventure and romcom tropes to reflect her, just as she is and always has been, and hence tell her life story. This new film takes a very similar approach, but exceeds Baby in how it reaches a surprisingly complex emotional maturity within all the expected romantic shenanigans. We last left Bridget on what seemed like the perfect happy ending, but nine years later her (and the world’s) beloved Mark Darcy has passed away, leaving Bridget a grieving single mother of two. Looking to liven up her life again, she quickly finds two new men looking her way, one much younger than her and the other her son’s science teacher. All the while, she has to contend with the complexities of single motherhood, various social pressures, and going back to work.

It is in these moments that it cuts straight to your heart

The film is a little overlong, taking its time in the first 40 minutes to effectively establish these core plot threads, but after that set-up is in place, the film absolutely soars. It is, of course, very funny, but the most surprising part is just how deceptively mature its study of moving on without forgetting becomes. I found myself crying multiple times in the second half in its emotional highs and lows, as Bridget looks to establish a spark with someone else while also feeling as though she’s abandoning Mark and the memory of her children’s father. There are multiple moments where the film sets the comedy aside to focus on how she feels and how she navigates her children’s struggles with Mark’s loss. It is in these moments that it cuts straight to your heart. Moving on from the man who was her soulmate is as tough for the audience as it is for Bridget, so seeing her contend with the natural desire to be happy and move on while honouring his memory proves utterly heart-wrenching. It is not a sad film whatsoever though, toeing a perfect line between the silly and the serious to make this the most satisfied and fulfilled I have felt watching one of these films. I left the screen truly elated.

Renée Zellweger is once more fantastic as Bridget, delivering a performance so attuned to the subtleties of her character that you forget she is not actually Bridget Jones. It certainly helps that she and the audience both know the character so well, but this is a genuinely masterful performance that totally inhabits the conscience and essence of another human being. Hugh Grant makes a return from the supposed grave as Daniel Cleaver and is hilarious as ever. Of all the supporting cast of characters, Cleaver in particular faces an emotional reckoning that is true to his silly playboy schtick, while also very real and heartfelt in how he starts to face the realities of life. The approach to his character very much speaks to how the whole film matures Bridget’s circle of friends and family while retaining the lightness of touch that makes the series so endearing.

As the real world seems to fall apart more and more every day, having a film like this selling out cinemas feels like the ultimate balm

Seeing this in a packed Friday afternoon screening with a friend was an absolute joy, with the film making a record £10.2 million in its opening weekend in the UK – the biggest for a romcom ever. There is something immensely gratifying about the lead of a major British blockbuster being a relatable, clumsy mess of a woman just trying to keep all the pieces of her overwhelmingly busy life afloat. To be in a screen filled with people who love this character as much as I do was wonderful. As the real world seems to fall apart more and more every day, having a film like this selling out cinemas feels like the ultimate balm, and the absolute antithesis to the many violent, cynical American blockbusters that fill screens nowadays. Having this seemingly simple and easily digestible film giving a crowd a great laugh, while also telling a deceptively moving and human story, made this a joy to see filling seats across the country. While watching the film, I totally believed that Bridget Jones was a real British woman living somewhere in modern London right now, and so I connected to her story far more than the latest explosion filled superhero movie. Bridget Jones is the hero we need right now. This is the blockbuster that the world needs right now.

I, alongside so many others, love Bridget Jones with my whole heart and soul, and this film does her such wonderful justice in this stage of her life that I really do hope the series ends here. Bridget is one of the greatest characters in all of British cinema, and to see more of her life and where this series leaves her was wonderful. It is hilarious, emotional, joyful, sad, poignant, moving, truthful and heartfelt. A wonderfully British, silly romcom and a very human drama – it is everything you could want from a Bridget Jones film. It will make you love the messiness of life again and it will make you love going to the cinema with a packed crowd again. What more could we ask for?