Have You Met Miss Jones?

Rating: 7/10 (8 July 2011)

Bridget Jones is a single woman in her early thirties who works for a London publishing company. The title derives from the fact that she confides all her feelings, her frustrations and her obsessions to her diary. And Bridget certainly has plenty of obsessions. She obsesses about her weight, about the amount she smokes, about the number of "units of alcohol" she consumes and about her inability to find a boyfriend. She is haunted by the thought that she is fated to remain single forever and worries that the destiny of all single women is to be found dead in their flat, their bodies eaten by their dogs. She is so desperate for love and affection that she even begins dating her boss, Daniel Cleaver, although she is well aware that he is a notorious womaniser with a phobia about commitment.
Helen Fielding's novel was a huge success in Britain in the late nineties, so much so that the phrase "a Bridget Jones" entered the language to describe a certain type of thirty-something career woman. Fielding deliberately drew upon Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" when writing her novel; her hero, for example, is named Mark Darcy. Bridget first meets Mark, a barrister, at a Christmas party hosted by her parents, and their courtship follows the same pattern as that of Elizabeth Bennett and the other Mr. Darcy; they start out by disliking each other and gradually come to appreciate each other's good qualities. Mark and Daniel, once friends, now cordially detest one another, and the reason for estrangement becomes clear in the course of the film. (Their relationship parallels that of Darcy and George Wickham in Austen's novel).
Before his Oscar-winning performance in "The King's Speech", Colin Firth was perhaps best known for playing the other Mr. Darcy in the famous BBC adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice", so he was perhaps a natural choice for the role of Mark. Like his namesake, this Darcy is gentlemanly and possessed of firm moral principles, but is quiet and reserved and finds it difficult to express his feelings. Hugh Grant was best known in the nineties for playing middle-class romantic comedy heroes in films like "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "The Englishman who Went up a Hill." and "Notting Hill", so playing a rotten cad like Cleaver- a man for whom the concept of morality is an alien one- was perhaps an attempt to broaden his range. (He had also played a villainous character in his previous film, "Small Time Crooks"). He throws himself into the role with gusto, so it is unfortunate that since 2001, except in the sequel, "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason", he has tended to retreat back into his romantic comedy comfort zone.
Of the three main characters, it is Bridget who bears least resemblance to her Austenian counterpart. (Elizabeth is generally cool and self-possessed, Bridget anything but). The casting of Renée Zellweger in the role caused some controversy in Britain, as some felt that it should have gone to a British star. (She was to cause a similar controversy five years later when she was cast in the title role of "Miss Potter"). The normal reason for parachuting American stars into British films is to win over those Americans who refuse to see any film unless it contains at least one well-known name, but that may not have been the reason here, given that the British actresses considered for the part included such internationally-known stars as Helena Bonham Carter, Rachel Weisz and Kate Winslet. The film did, however, prove two things about Renée Zellweger. The first is that she can do a splendid English accent. Like Gwyneth Paltrow in "Sliding Doors" she manages to make her character sound convincingly like a middle-class Londoner, avoiding the twin traps of making her either too posh or too cockney.
The second thing we learn about Renee is that she has a gift for comedy, particularly important in the latter part of the film. (This is a romantic comedy where the stress is on the second word as much as on the first). Bridget leaves her job in publishing and becomes a television reporter; she tackles her assignments gamely but incompetently, and normally ends up making a laughing-stock of herself. Yet all the time she remains sympathetic, not merely ridiculous, which is important.
Another feature is the witty use of pop music, using titles which have some connection to the plot of the film. Examples include "It's Raining Men", "Have You Met Miss Jones?" and "Can't Take My Eyes off You", each of which occurs at some pertinent point in the action.
There is nothing very deep about "Bridget Jones's Diary" unlike, say, "Four Weddings." or "Sliding Doors", both of which display a greater degree of ambition than one would normally associate with the rom-com genre. It is, however, a likable and occasionally witty comedy, one of the better British romantic comedies of the 2000s. It is certainly better than the below-par sequel. 7/10