‘Bridget Jones 4’ Brings Depth to the Madness

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy will be different from what a lot of fans expect, but it’s all the better for it.

Key points

• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy shows us how the characters grow and adapt and deal with real-world challenges in their happily-ever-after.
• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’s themes around dating and grief include content that make it for mature audiences.
• Watch Laura’s chat with Director Michael Morris below.

Releasing 24 years after the first installment, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy sees Renee Zellweger return as the likeable if not clumsy heroine, this time grieving the loss of Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and navigating life as a single mum and widow.

Wondering if she should, or could, find love again, Bridget’s friends and family encourage her to be open to the possibility, and the apps and awkwardness ensue.

Before watching Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy you might assume the fourth in the franchise would be an unnecessary regurgitation of a successful format, risking failure revisiting the past.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy shows us how the characters grow and adapt and deal with real-world challenges in their happily-ever-after.

Pleasantly though, in the world of sequels, prequels and remakes it doesn’t roll out familiar characters just to reminisce but show us how they grow and adapt and deal with real-world challenges in their happily-ever-after.

Based on the book series by Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’ diehard fans will’ve known Mark Darcy would be dead for this installment, but for fans of the movie alone it was a shock to see a trailer with Bridget grieving, widowed and left without her great love.

Director Michael Morris (13 Reasons Why, Bloodline) thinks what Bridget faces reflects the true nature of life and how we “can have both dark days, and ones filled with light”.

“The sad thing about life sometimes is the thing you can’t possibly lose – i.e. our Mark Darcy – is the thing that is taken away,” Michael told Hope 103.2.

“It’s the perfect beginning to me, to tell something about all of us, which is: how do we react to that? How do we recover from that? When you’ve lost the thing you can’t lose, then what?”

In the style of the previous films, Bridget’s friends give her good and bad advice on the road to recovery and keep the comedic tone alive.

Leo Woodall (One Day, The White Lotus) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Venom: The Last Dance, Locked Down) are Bridget’s contrasting love interests, one the “younger man” and one the “sensible science teacher”, both causing Bridget to face assumptions about love, what she’s looking for and what inspires lasting attraction.

Conversations between Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Bridget provide particular depth to the movie as they wrestle with the existence of heaven, the soul and how to embrace mystery.

“It’s a really important thread in [Mad About the Boy],” Michael said.

“[Mr. Wallaker] is a man of science, a man of answers, he’s not interested in mystery.

“Bridget is a more feeling person and has this sense of something more mysterious [and] by the end of the film [Mr. Wallaker’s] gone a journey where perhaps he’s admitting that there’s more than just the science.”

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’s themes around dating and grief include content that make it for mature audiences.

The combination and depth, laughter and self-reflection make Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy a rarity in the romantic comedy genre and, be warned, you may cry more than expected.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’s themes around dating and grief include content that make it for mature audiences.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is in cinemas now.

Feature image: Photos supplied by Universal. Frame and header background by CanvaPro.