Renée romantic, funny, lovable 

By Margaret McGurk, The The Cincinnati Enquirer

Renee Zellweger is a binary movie star.

On or off, yes or no. You love her or you hate her. You get her or you don't.

That - not her place of birth - made it a gamble to cast her in Bridget Jones's Diary, a movie that drops the burden of winning over the audience on the leading lady's shoulders.

Happily, she hoists the weight gracefully and with so much zest and naked vulnerability that she could well entice new followers to jump over the wall from the far side of the pro-con divide.

The story, well known to fans of Helen Fielding's best-selling novel, follows the bumpy personal and professional self-improvement program of the title diarist. Bridget is a 32-year-old Londoner with a job in public relations and a psychological trunk full of issues.

She smokes too much, drinks too much, talks too much and obsesses about her weight. She develops a severe crush on her dishy cad of a boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), and an equally intense antagonism for her now-dishy childhood playmate Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

Wouldn't you know it, Bridget ends up at the crossroads of a fierce rivalry between the two men. Sure, she may be battered by doubt and insecurity over her lumpy frame, but her native wit and sexiness shine so brightly that the boys are, more or less, blind to her flaws.

That's hard to do in a movie these days, but darned if Ms. Zellweger doesn't pull it off. She blasts through the self-pitying conventions of most romantic comedy to dig out a spirited, surprising, full-blooded woman.

Ms. Zellweger is ably supported by both of her male co-stars, who gamely submit to the whiplash contortions of Bridget's emotional landscape. 

Director Sharon Maguire is a close friend of the author (she inspired the character Shazzy, played on film by Sally Phillips). Ms. Fielding collaborated with Richard Curtis and Andrew Davies on adapting the novel to the screen, and together they pin down the undiluted hilarity in Bridget's absurd, hopeful adventure.

All of it would be for nothing, though, were it not for the selfless work of their star, who turns Bridget's quest for true love into a wild adventure.