Oh god. Here we go. I guess this is where the torture begins. Before I go any further, I would like to state why I am starting this segment. Lets start with the obvious…. I HATE ROMANTIC COMEDIES. In my opinion, they are frequently what Hollywood studios put out just to get a quick, easy, guaranteed, cash grab. ‘Cause, I mean, who hates romantic comedies?….
Through this segment I hope to search through the annals of romantic comedies, the popular and the indies, the old and the new, in order to better enhance my knowledge of every aspect of cinema. Or, at least, that’s why I’m telling myself I’m doing it. I may just be a bit of a sadomasochist. But either way, from here on, my torture will be your entertainment! So, without further ado…
This is one of the most boring movies I have ever seen in my entire life. I sat through the entire one hour and thirty-seven minutes of this film without feeling any bit of emotional connection to any of the characters. For your convenience, I have created the following graph to visually display the roller coaster of emotions I went through during my viewing of Bridget Jones’s Diary:
i.e. I did not go through any sort of emotion throughout the film
Before I go any further, let me give you some context. Bridget Jones’s Diary is based upon a novel of the same name by Helen Fielding, which is itself a reworking of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Now, in no way do I think Jane Austen’s literary work has no place in society. I do think it has no place in film though. Or, rather, it’s tough to find it a comfortable place in film. There have been several film adaptions that have received critical acclaim, most recently Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship (2016). Personally, though, I find these films to be absolutely boring to watch. Yes, they have great dialogue. Yes, most of the time the acting is great. But visually, these films bore me to tears, and the stories tend not to have much momentum or interest to me. So, what happens when you take this concept, bring it to modern day, and put it in the formula of a sappy Romantic-Comedy? You get Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Bridget Jones is a thirty two year old, alcoholic, slightly overweight woman who is struggling to find love. She begins writing in a diary, which we hear through voice-over narration, which chronicles the events of the film. The main conflict Bridget is faced with is finding ‘Mr. Right’ (hearing that tag line literally sent shivers of ‘cliche’ down my spine) and choosing between her boss Daniel (Hugh Grant), who is sexy but loose, and a friend of the family Mark (Colin Firth), a lawyer who is uptight but morally perfect. Can you guess which one she ends up with?
From the moment this film started I knew where it would end. The story was so formulaic I was surprised by literally nothing in the film. There wasn’t a single moment I thought ‘Whoah, at least they did something different there!’ Every single thing in the film was by the books and boring.
Lets start with the plot. We begin with Bridget at a party where she meets Mark, who is uptight and doesn’t give her the time of day. She then starts dating Daniel, who, surprise surprise, is actually an old friend of Mark! However, we learn from Daniel that Mark had an affair with Daniel’s fiance, and he caught them in the act. When he tells this story, the filmmakers insert a shot of what we are to assume is Daniel’s hand opening a door to supposedly find Mark with his fiance. However, the shot ends right as ‘Daniel’s’ hand opens the door. This was so obviously a visual dangling clause that I immediately knew that Daniel was lying, and it would later be revealed that Daniel had actually had an affair with Mark’s wife. All I had to do was wait for the reveal. After Bridget finds Daniel with another woman (in an unintentionally hilarious moment when the woman Daniel is having an affair with comments on Bridget walking in on her naked simply stating ‘I thought you said she was thin’ leaving me laughing at how out of touch with reality this film is) she decides to quit her job and break up with him. After wallowing in self pity, she runs into Mark at a party where he surprisingly reveals that he has feelings for her. Why? Don’t ask me. But, sadly for Bridget, he is already in a relationship with his female co-worker who conveniently always ends a scene by having him come and discuss the case they are working on cause the writers don’t know how else to end the scene.
Nothing of importance really happens until Mark comes over and helps cook on Bridget’s birthday, where much flirting ensues. Things seem to be going well until, oh no it’s Daniel! And worse yet, he’s come to try and win Bridget’s heart back! Why? Don’t ask me. This leads to a fight between the two gentlemen, in which Mark walks away because Bridget says he is just as bad as Daniel. The screenwriters are careful not to let Bridget tell Mark why she thinks he’s just as bad as Daniel, because they still have to use that for later even though everyone in the audience knows the twist. She then turns down Daniel again, leaving herself all alone, until *ding*, right around the one-hour and fifteen minute mark it’s revealed that Daniel had actually had an affair with Mark’s wife! What a shocker! Bridget quickly goes to Mark to tell him her true feelings, but it’s revealed Mark is moving to New York for his job! Poor Bridget. Once again in the wallows of self pity, her friends (oh ya, she has a group of friends we see near every plot point, but don’t worry they don’t actually do anything for the story) invite her to Paris, but just as she’s about to leave- OH MY GOD IT’S MARK! He moved back from New York just for Bridget, how lovely! There’s another small moment of conflict where Mark finds Bridget’s diary and finds a bunch of slander about himself and leaves the apartment, prompting Bridget to chase after him in her underwear. But don’t worry, when she finds him it’s revealed he was just getting her a new diary, for a new start…..
AWWWWWWWWW HOW CUTE HE’S SO PERFECT
They kiss through a cross dissolving effect of several different angles of them kissing and then the movie ends. Thank god. There is also a seperate sub-plot in the movie that deals with Bridget’s mother having an affair with another man, leaving Bridget’s father alone. This sub-plot has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the film. It doesn’t intertwine in any way, it does not affect Bridget in any sense, and it didn’t affect me in any emotional way. If anything, it angered me when the sub-plot was resolved by having the father take the mother back with no repercussions. The plot of this film is so contrived and predictable the element of surprise is non-existent. Therefore tension is non-existent. Therefore audience engagement is inaccessible.
Let’s talk about the morals of this movie for a moment, shall we? There are several things that I actually do like about this film, I know it may surprise you, but there are a few things. One of them is the actual character of Bridget Jones. She is a very human, very flawed main character which, I suspect, may be very relatable for some single women in their thirties. Even though she does get on my nerves sometimes with her mopiness, she is still a very human character. However, I do not like the way this movie deals with love in respect to the character.
One of the movies main morals is ‘Find someone who loves you just the way you are.” That is a great moral. I love it. Totally agree. But, it seems the movie has a bit of a one sided idea for what this means. Bridget sacrifices nothing in the movie, at least in the long run. Sure, she embarrasses herself a few times, including in the end when she runs out into the snow in her underwear. But, truly, what does she sacrifice to be with Mark? Nothing. On the other hand, Mark sacrifices quite a bit to be with Bridget. For one, he ends the relationship he was currently in. And sure, you may say ‘Well he wasn’t happy in the relationship anyway’ and I might agree. However, this is already a sacrifice that Mark has made that is much more meaningful than anything Bridget has done. Oh and he does one more thing too… HE MOVES BACK FROM FUCKING NEW YORK TO BE WITH HER. No, he didn’t just cancel his move, it shows shots of him in New York before he goes back to be with Bridget. He actually flew there, possibly with his luggage and everything, only to move back to London! Do you know how much that must cost? Oh, and to go along with the money aspect, this also implies that he quit the job they were offering him in New York! Now, I want to be as fair as possible, but it certainly seems like Mark has done a lot more for Bridget than Bridget has done for Mark. This movie should really rethink it’s morals in terms of fairness in a relationship. Sure, you should definitely find someone who loves you for who you are. But, you need to learn about sacrifice and compromise to make a relationship work any further than that aspect, and if this is true, the relationship in this movie seems to have a long way to go.
As for the technical aspects of the film, they are appallingly bland. I think there was a total of two camera shots that actually impressed me in the film. I’m not saying every single camera movement should impress me, but at least let your movie has style, let it say something with it’s visuals. This films camera tells me nothing. There are also several moments in this film that do effects that are unbelievably cheesy. During it’s most dramatic moments it goes into an awkward sort of slow motion effect that’s supposed to make us feel like we’re in the characters head, but really it just makes it more melodramatic. There’s another single moment that literally made me slap my forehead out of amazement at the idiocy of the filmmakers. Bridget has just attempted to sound smart in front of Daniel by pretending she was talking to a university professor on the phone, to which Daniel tells her that the professor has been dead nearly twenty years. As Bridget’s face goes red, the text ‘fuuuuuuuuck!’ goes across the screen, looking as if it was written down by Bridget herself. This effect is never used again. Why the filmmakers decided to do this during this moment, I have no idea. It’s the modern day equivalent of something awkward happening in a movie, and one of the characters says ‘awkward!’, prompting the audience to laugh. WE KNOW IT’S UNCOMFORTABLE. WE KNOW IT’S AWKWARD. YOU DON’T NEED TO LITERALLY SPELL IT OUT FOR US. Use this moment to make a creative joke rather than the moment being the joke. Also, the music is just horrendous. The original soundtrack is forgettable, and when they do insert famous songs into the mix, they are so on the nose it’s eye rolling. “It’s Raining Men” plays as the two men fight each other, “Out of Reach” when Mark moves to New York. It’s like the filmmaker doesn’t think we understand what is happening, so he literally needs to lay it out for us through the musics lyrics.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, if you are still reading, I will talk about some of the elements I actually liked. First off, the acting in this film is very good. I don’t think there was a single bad performance throughout the movie, however there were two especially that stood out to me. I learned after watching the film that Renée Zellweger was actually from Texas and gained 20 pounds for the role. This was amazing to me because not for one second did I doubt this woman to be of British descent. Not only this, but she does embody her character very well, even though she doesn’t get to go too in depth with her. Another stand out performance was Colin Firth who did an excellent job as Mark. His extreme stand offishness and it’s slow change towards vulnerability truly felt very natural thanks to him and he tackled the performance perfectly. We hated him when we were supposed to, and loved him when we were supposed to. Fantastic.
Another surprising aspect that I enjoyed was the script. I know, I just tore it apart just a short while up the page, but hold your pitchforks for a second while I explain myself. Yes, the plot is cliche and terrible, but the actual dialogue and writing of the characters is very well done. All of our characters have a particular vernacular that suits them perfectly, giving the actors strong starting points where they take off from. The vocabulary for each character is wildly different, and the writers do an excellent job of having them speak their own truths and vulnerabilities through their own word choice. It’s just too bad these truths are rather shallow.
Overall, Bridget Jones’s Diary is not a good movie. But, I get the feeling that it is not the worst Romantic-Comedy I will be watching throughout this segment (Oh, and by the way, there are two sequels as well. God help me…). Thanks to it’s great performances and witty dialogue, this film may be watchable for some, and some may even be able to laugh at it’s attempts at humor. However, my only laughter came from it’s embarrassing execution. There would be no way I could sit through this absolute bore of a movie one more time.
Final Score: 4.0/10 (Bad)
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