Not as good as some of Hugh Grant's other romantic comedies, but Bridget Jones's Diary stands out as one of the better comedies of 2001.

Rating: 6/10 (6 August 2002)

First of all, yes, I realize that it sounds kind of ironic to say that Bridget Jones's Diary is not as GOOD as other Hugh Grant movies, but keep in mind that even this hideously charming English actor has come out with some genuinely entertaining and memorable films (I am thinking, in particular, of films like Four Weddings and A Funeral and especially Notting Hill and even several of his other films that are not Mickey Blue Eyes). With Bridget Jones's Diary, director Sharon Maguire approaches the daunting task of attempting to convince the (American) public that there is a big-breasted blonde played by Renee Zellweger who has made it to her thirties without ever having had a boyfriend, and the film that results from this effort depicts the point in her life where she happens to gain two boyfriends at once.
At the time that Bridget Jones's Diary was released, Hugh Grant had recently starred in Notting Hill, in which he famously uttered the words 'whoopsy-daisy,' removing any room for respect from his character that there might once have been, although at the same time making us love him whether we liked it or not as well as realize that his character was made un-respectable for that very reason. Because of this uncomfortable but ultimately pleasing love for his character in that film, we are willing to forgive a lot of the terrible things that he does in Bridget Jones's Diary, but only when we see him change from the womanizer that he amazingly plays in this film and reverts into the same caricature character that he always plays (see my Mickey Blue Eyes review) that we have grown to know and love, for the most part.
Colin Firth, on the other hand, has just come out of his role in Shakespeare in Love, where he played the jerk who Viola De Lesseps was forced to marry, despite our desperate wish that she would find a way to escape the arranged marriage and marry her true love, William Shakespeare. Bridget Jones's Diary plays off of both of these past performances in the formation of its story, suggesting (erroneously) that the roles were written for the actors and greatly enhancing the effect of its plot.
I remember watching this film and being disappointed from within minutes of the film that I was going to watch a childish exercise in the traditional romantic comedy (indeed, it's not hard during the e-mail trading within the office to assume that Bridget and her boss, played by Hugh Grant, are going to go through some weak romance trouble and then wind up happily in love at the end of the film). There is an interesting introduction of the other love interest in Colin Firth's character, who she hates from the moment we meet him. And, if I may interject for a moment, on a personal level, my two best and closest friendships, with Ryan Collette and Kyle Blount, started exactly the same way. When we met in high school, there were times that we were literally inches away from fistfights, and now, several years later, they're brothers to me. There is nothing that I wouldn't do for them or them for me, and it's interesting to consider whether something like this inspired the introduction we see of Firth's character into the film or whether the writers were simply trying to come up with something original.
In any case, it doesn't matter, because while the film doesn't exactly generate the most respect in the way that it plods through its content (some of the interactions between Bridget and her two men are less than convincing, which is nearly catastrophic because the success of the film depends exactly on whether the audience is convinced of that very thing), there is a genuine element of not knowing how the story is going to end up. We are torn between our love for some of Hugh Grant's previous characters (as well as our expectation that the more well-known actor will end up victorious regardless) and our hatred from Colin Firth's character in Shakespeare in Love alone (a testament to the quality of that movie as well as to his performance within it) in trying to decide for ourselves what is to become of Bridget Jones's love life in the future.
There's a scene where this indecisiveness between the two suitors comes to a climax, when they both get into a fistfight in the snow-covered street, but the uncertainty of who she is going to end up with pursues until near the end of the film, when it becomes progressively obvious. True, this is not the best love story ever presented on film, but Bridget Jones's Diary is definitely one of the better romantic comedies of the last few years.