A Bundle
of Joy
Stella Papamichael | Radio Times – September 6, 2016
Renée Zellweger’s hapless heroine
is pregnant – but unsure who the father is – in a comedy sequel that
really delivers.
Over a decade after Bridget said “yes” to her Mr Darcy, she is alone
again in a total hoot of a sequel, outdoing the second film by far (almost
matching the first), perhaps because the scatty diarist is carrying a lot
more baggage now.
Reprising the iconic role, Renée Zellweger bears the burden well
(unafraid to show a few wrinkles) and gives it plenty of gusto from the
off, when Bridget celebrates her 43rd birthday with a cupcake and plenty
of wine. She is older but no wiser despite putting her career first for
once.
Colin Firth slips back into the Mark Darcy role like a glove – or a wet
shirt – married, but alas, not to Bridget. Helen Fielding’s third
Bridget Jones novel had fans up in arms by submitting him to an even worse
fate, but director Sharon Maguire (who made her big screen debut with the
first film in 2001) works instead from a script based on Fielding’s
columns for The Independent in
2005.
Here, it’s Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver who is pushed out of the
picture, but it’s the loss of Darcy that impels Bridget to put her heart
into her work. Still, she is in danger of losing that, too, when a team of
young executive hipsters are drafted in to take the news viral.
Behind the scenes Zellweger has some great X-rated banter with Sarah
Solemani, a standout as a newsreader so outrageously saucy – cleverly
timing her quips between headline soundbites – she’d make Fiona
Bruce blush. She urges Bridget to cut loose and get “dirty” at a muddy
music festival and after a bit of good old-fashioned slapstick Bridget is
soon falling into bed with Patrick Dempsey’s suave American self-help
guru Jack Qwant.
Not much later, a run-in with Darcy and a lot more wine leaves her twisted
in the sheets once again and torn over what to do when she finds out
she’s “up the duff”.
Emma Thompson tickles the ribs as Bridget’s doctor, who wearily plays
along when the expectant mother brings Darcy and Qwant to alternate
appointments, too cowardly to tell one about the other. Thompson also
co-wrote the script with Fielding and Dan Mazer (Sacha Baron Cohen’s
frequent collaborator since Ali G) and together they trump the Edge of
Reason with a sassier, more satisfying mix of dry wit and knockabout
comedy. Apart from Bridget’s obvious dilemma, they draw on her
insecurities about balancing motherhood with a career and ageing in an
industry that prizes youth – and YouTube – above experience.
Kate O’Flynn certainly grabs the attention as Bridget’s new boss, a
hilarious glossy-lipped Goth/Goebbels cross, only impressed by Bridget
when she books Jack as a guest and proceeds to interrogate him, live on
TV, about his sex life.
Even if the machinations of the plot are highly unlikely and predictable,
like the best British comedy, there are moments that make you cringe as
well as laugh out loud.
Along with that, there’s a familiarity about Bridget – and her
inclination to show herself up, instinctively played by Zellweger – that
heightens those pivotal moments when she could just tell the truth and
chooses not to.
Elsewhere, there is an edge to Dempsey’s Mr Nice Guy that could have run
deeper to make the character more interesting in a Cleaverish sort of way,
but the push and pull between him and Firth (stoic as ever) is nicely
played as Bridget decides who she wants to raise her child. The scene
where she is forced to introduce them to each other – dragging in a
random bystander named Ariyaratna Sithamparanathan to try and defuse the
situation – is classic.
Witty, playful touches like this and a sterling supporting cast that
brings back Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as mum and dad, Celia Imrie as
mum’s bestie and Sally Phillips as Bridget’s confidante, ensure that Bridget Jones’s Baby is a bundle of joy.
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