CBS News Sunday Morning Reviews 
- Bridget Jones's Diary -

Charles Osgood, John Leonard – April 8, 2001– Transcript.

CHARLES OSGOOD, CBS ANCHOR: John Leonard is here with a film review.

Good morning, John.

JOHN LEONARD, CBS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Charles.

Salman Rushdie shows up early on in the delightful new movie "Bridget Jones's Diary," as if J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon had shown up in "Charlie's Angels." This is at a cocktail party at the London publishing house where Bridget works as a publicity assistant. Tongue-tied in Rushdie's bearded presence, Bridget asks the satanic versifier which way to the loo.

If you've read Helen Fielding's best-selling novel about Bridget, you already know that she's 32 years old, 20 pounds overweight, smokes too many cigarettes, drinks too much vodka, has no idea how to get anywhere and is always late anyway. Even in her diary, she's an unreliable narrator of her own life. On the other hand, wherever Bridget is will be a better place, because she's there.

(VIDEO CLIP) 

Sally Phillips: Watch the step.

James Callis: She's fine.

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LEONARD (voice-over): Renee Zellweger, eating chocolate and making lists, plays Bridget to perfection. If I didn't know and hadn't told you, you'd never guess she was born in Texas instead of London.

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Renée Zellweger: Where are all the other tarts and vicars?

Celia Imrie: Didn't Jeffrey call you?

James Faulkner: How is my little Bridget? Bop, bop.

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

LEONARD: Determined to find true love before she is eaten by wild dogs, she rushes into the grabby arms of Hugh Grant, her book-publishing boss, a dreamboat and a bounder.

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Hugh Grant: I'm king of the world!

Renée Zellweger: You seem to go out of your way do make me feel like a complete idiot every time I see you.

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

LEONARD: Simultaneously, she resists the attentions of repressed barrister Colin Firth, a stuffed shirt and noble noodle.

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Colin Firth: I know there are elements of the ridiculous about you.

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LEONARD: Her flaky friends are not much help.

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Sally Phillips/James Callis/Shirley Henderson: To Bridget, who cannot cook, but who we love. Just as she is.

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LEONARD: But a star is born anyway, magnetic and sarcastic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

Renée Zellweger: Bridget Jones, wanton sex goddess. Dad. Hi.

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LEONARD: Romantic comedy depends on timing, and "Bridget Jones' Diary" tick-tocks like a music box.

Jane Austen would have loved Bridget, and so do I. And who knows about Salman Rushdie? Bridget doesn't change; the rest of them have to in the wobble of her gravity and the wonder of her grin. I can't tell you how pleasant it was to meet her after so many movies and novels about crybaby 30-somethings who never grow up to be more interesting than their immune systems; who seem to have felt rotten ever since pampers; who, because they are too lazy, stoned or solipsistic ever to have read a good book, mustered a fierce feeling or surprised a coherent idea, are incapable of love, art, politics, unselfishness, or even enthusiasm.

END

© 2001 CBS Worldwide Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.