Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy: Movie Review

Cast: Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Chiwetel Eijofor, Leo Woodall

Director: Michael Morris

Bridget's back after nearly 25 years since first opening her diary in this latest - a film that's most likely to appeal to long term fans of the flighty and perma-flustered heroine.

Based on Helen Fielding's Mad About the Boy, it finds the titular Jones stuck in a rut some four years after the death of her beloved Mr Darcy (Firth, who makes fleeting and poignant appearances throughout) and trying to cope with being a single mother-of-two.

But spurred on by friends who declare widowhood sexy, she decides to emerge from her cocoon of self-imposed exile and live again.

There are moments in Mad About the Boy where the allure and appeal of Bridget come vividly to life. Whether it's juggling the delicacies of negotiating modern day lifts or being embarrassed after misunderstandings in supermarkets, Zellweger proves to be particularly game - and adept - at handling the comedy and physical requirements of the film's script.

And in truth, fans of the book series and the cinematic rendering of Bridget will be fully onboard with the fourth film, even before realising parts of the movie pander to the comforts and joys of characters that have been intertwined with lives since 2001's film debut.

But parts of the story feel shallow and narrative plot points unearned. A central relationship is nothing more than narrative convenience and contrivance rather than necessity. Maybe that's part of the problem of the source material more than anything, but Mad About the Boy makes no effort to improve what weaker moments there could be.

Far more effective it may be as a meditation on grief and life moving on, but Mad About The Boy is less interested in providing depth and more keen on fulfilling rom-com notions about its hero - as well as giving one final celebratory lap around the familiar faces.

Whether it's capturing the universal embarrassments and awkward moments of self-reflection or the negative comparisons to others who are seemingly perfect, parts of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy really hone in on the perils of being a woman of a certain age in a society that's forever judging.

It's in these moments that Zellweger excels - not always overplaying the slapstick of the moment, but always mining the societal sadness that exists.

Hugh Grant also shines as Daniel Cleaver, a sexist dinosaur who's never changed his ways - but there's an underplayed sadness to some of his scenes with tacit realisations and ruminations that his philandering ways have left him alone when it matters most.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy won't change the rom com genre and nor does it do enough to offer even a ripple into how they're done - but as a final bow for the heroine, it does enough to satiate its core fanbase while somehow managing to feel like it's the kind of comfortable unchallenging film that British cinema and Working Title films did all too often in the very late 1990s.