Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Does anyone have that friend you know for a long time and you shake your head in admiration and then eventually realize you’re shaking your head in misery? Bridget Jones would be that type of friend.

She’s miserably lovable, and she’s always going to be a friend whether you like it or not, but, really, who but Bridget, with her remorseful diary entries for alcohol and drug consumption per day, would end up getting arrested in Thailand on drug-smuggling charges?

Obviously, Bridget is not a drug smuggler, but being Bridget, she did the one thing no tourist should ever do, and that is to carry in her luggage a souvenir giving to her girl friend by a main. However, Bridget has pluck. In very little time, she exchanged her pink bra for cigarettes, organized her prison inmates into a Madonna class, and they’re rehearsing Like a Virgin.

Roger Ebert said in his review, ““Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” is a jolly movie and I smiled pretty much all the way through, but it doesn’t shift into high with a solid thunk the way “Bridget Jones's Diary” (2001) did.” In the first movie, things happened to Bridget. In the 2004 sequel, Bridget happens to things.

As the movie starts, Bridget is in a happy relationship with Mark Darcy, reprised by Colin Firth, who to her surprised became her boyfriend in the previous film. Ebert noted, “Plump Bridget, in love with a hunk! She’s still working as an on-air personality for a TV show which seems to be running its private version of “Fear Factor” just for Bridget; surely this girl is not ready to sky dive?” Or ski? Or manage a romance without getting awkwardly jealous of the quality time Mark seems to be spending with his colleague Rebecca, played by Jacinda Barrett? However, she loves the man. Who else could keep him standing outside her door while she finishes leaving a message for him on his answering machine? Especially when the message is, essentially, that he is standing outside even as she speaks?

Bridget depends as before on the wisdom of three friends whose advice is dependably dangerous. They are Shazzer (Sally Phillips), Tom (James Callis), and Jude (Shirley Henderson), and they support her when she and Mark have a completely unreasonable fight. Bridget flies off to Thailand on assignment and discovers that her former boyfriend Daniel, reprised by Hugh Grant, is already there. This is a man she should never, ever, have anything to do with, but because she is mad at Mark, she allows herself to be taken over by a position where Daniel can cry happily: “Please! Please be wearing the giant panties!”

Ebert pointed out, “Renee Zellweger is lovable to begin with, and combining her with Bridget Jones creates a critical mass of cuteness: You don’t want to just watch her, you want to tickle her ears and scratch under her chin. She has that desperately hopeful smile, and the endearing optimism of a woman in a dress two sizes too small. When she embarrasses herself, it’s big-time, as when she single-handedly causes Mark’s table to lose the annual quiz at the Law Society Dinner.”

The scenes in Thailand, it must be said, project beyond apparatus. Ebert described, “Bridget is the kind of woman who is more at home dealing with the sorts of things that could happen to anybody, like dropping a rock Cornish game hen down the front of her dress. She isn’t made for cocaine busts. And it’s a little mystifying why Daniel and Mark, two relatively important and successful men no longer in their first youth, have another brawl over her. Their motivation, I think, is that the fight in the first movie was so funny.” Hugh Grant is so good at losing his dignity that we forget what masterful acting it takes to guarantee us he has any. Colin Firth basically plays the good guy, never a choice role. Scoundrels always have more fun in comedies.

Ebert said, “Standing back from “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” I can see that the perfection of the first film has been replaced here by a series of comic episodes that could as easily be about anything else.” The movie doesn’t have the awful necessity of the first film’s journey for true love. If we didn’t know better, we’d think the sequel slightly plans her way into situations because she knows how cute she looks when she gets in trouble.

Ebert ended his review by admitting, “Still, at the end of the day, I left hoping there will be a Bridget 3. Long may she squint and bravely smile and keep tugging her neckline up and believe in love.”

As I stated last week, I remember seeing the trailer for this movie a long time ago, even before I knew this was a sequel. Then I saw the beginning on VOD but stopped for some reason. Many years passed before I saw the first one then I checked out the second one and I know that critics don’t like it, but I loved it. If you saw the first movie and liked it, I would say see the sequel on Max and give it a chance. If you don’t like it, I understand, but at least see it to know for sure if you like it or not.

Next week, I will look at the third movie, which took years before it came out. Apologies for the late posting. Today’s my sister’s birthday, so we were celebrating that with her.