Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Renée Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Isla Fisher, and Emma Thompson

Director: Michael Morris

What’s Good: The banter and chemistry between the characters feel just right, and it is great to send them off on a good note.

What’s Bad: The plot’s formula and the filmmaking feel obsolete, to the point that there are many deja vu moments through the runtime, as if you have seen this film many times before already.

Loo Break: The second act overextends itself, so that is a good point to have a break.

Watch or Not?: Watch only if you are a huge Bridget Jones fan.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Theaters, Peacock

Runtime: 125 Minutes.

User Rating:

When the original Bridget Jones came out more than 24 years ago, it was a mixture of excellent British humor with American sensibilities and a good dose of old-fashioned romance. The combination felt fresh, making Bridget a character everyone wanted to root for. However, 24 years later, the freshness of that concept now becomes stale, and this fourth and probably final installment in the series can’t avoid feeling like a relic of the past.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy Movie Review: Script Analysis

The first thing you notice about Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is that it is a film full of melancholy and nostalgia. While this can propel the story all the way through to the end, it does feel like the film and its script don’t have any newer or important ideas to tell about growing old and being left behind by life. It is not that the ideas are not there, but they are presented in the same fashion that countless other films have done before.

And yet, just the fact that the ideas are there might be enough for some people to feel them and connect with those ideas in ways that, sadly, I couldn’t because the execution feels archaic and tiresome. And while it might be asking much that a fourth installment in a franchise to try new things, it is still disappointing that you have to go through so many déjà vu moments, because you have seen Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, not only in the past Bridget Jones films but in many others dealing with these same issues.

Thankfully, while the tackling of the themes feels stale, the characters are all still charming, and seeing them old but still rocking feels excellent. It is like sending off a friend after a good night out; you know you had a great time, but the possibility of never seeing them again lingers. All the characters retain their charm, and their banter is still engaging. A couple of new characters are surprisingly strong and fit entirely into the character’s roster.

The film will resonate with the audience, growing alongside the character. That part of the audience will enjoy every moment of the film, including the sad ones, but it might be a tough sell if you are not already on board with the story and characters.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy Movie Review: Star Performance

Zellweger is still the protagonist of the show, and her dominion over Bridget is more than apparent. The actress moves effortlessly through all the new feelings and challenges that the character needs to face, and it is indeed the defining role of Zellweger’s career. She has grown with the character, making everything feel very organic, especially as she interacts with the other characters, which is the best part of the film.

The rest of the cast does very well. It is great to see familiar faces, both relevant and not so much within the scope of the film series, and it is also great to see the new faces having their moment to shine. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the one who shines the most in a role that is very much against the image we have of the actor, and yet, he does very, very well. Ejiofor should think about doing more rom-coms in the future.