A surprise and a half (Bridget Jones's Diary (DVD))

Member Name: indysangha

Product:	Bridget Jones's Diary (DVD)
Date:	23/07/01 (8 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: funny, good script, everyones talkin about it

Disadvantages: poor soundtrack, everyones talking about it

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Bridget Jones’s Diary is the kind of film that sparks conversation. Unfortunately, in my case, it wasn’t just conversation after the movie, but during, as well.

When I went to the late-night preview, I was surrounded by women. All of them, it seemed, had read the best-selling novel by Helen Fielding. Ugh. All of them, to be sure, were pumped and primed for a very good evening. Or, in Bridgetspeak, a v.g. evening. My heart sank. Double ugh.

Sure enough, the opening credits had barely cleared the screen when it became hotly apparent I was sitting in a forest of Bridgetfans. When our London working girl heroine gets her heart squashed by a cad, my Bridgies hissed, “wanker!” and other less savory epithets. But when B. shows the wanker his comeuppance, I was suddenly surrounded by pumping fists and cries of “You go, girl!” and “uh-HUH!”

No doubt about it, Bridget Jones’s Diary is the Talk-Back Movie of the Year.

But it’s also the Can’t-Wipe-This-Grin-Off-My-Face Movie of the Year. What else could you expect from the people who brought us Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill? Writer Richard Curtis and producers Tim Bevan, Jonathan Cavendish and Eric Fellner and first-time director Sharon Maguire have pulled off a remarkable trick: turning an immensely popular novel with a passionate fan club into a movie that seems to sacrifice nothing of Miss Jones’ lively spirit (I say “seems” because I have yet to read the book).

For the uninitiated, the unBridgeted, here’s the skinny on our zaftig girl: she’s desperately trying to lose weight (New Year’s resolution: reduce circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches), she’s a chain smoker and binge drinker, given to blurting out whatever’s on her mind and, like so many unmarried women
(“singletons”), looking for Mr. Right. She’s a self-proclaimed spinster and lunatic convinced she’s destined “to die fat and lonely in my apartment only to be discovered three weeks later half-eaten by stray dogs.”

The movie follows Bridget in the course of one year as she flirts with her boss (Hugh Grant), falls in love with a fellow who looks like Mr. Right (Colin Firth), gets her heart broken, gets her heart mended, loses 72 pounds (but gains 74), and somehow stays chipper throughout.

The movie follows patterns familiar to anyone who loves frothy, bubbly romantic comedies (especially ones starring Hugh Grant). There aren’t too many surprises in this Book of Love. Except one: the movie is surprisingly good.

v.g., in fact.

Despite the chorus of distracting female hoots and hollers that surrounded me in the theater, I found myself thoroughly charmed by every second of Bridget Jones’s Diary and wished it could have gone on longer. Surely, I thought, just one or two more journal entries?

Making this movie was a risky venture from the start and the production had been dogged by doubts from nervous fans who didn’t want to see their beloved Bridge mucked up. For starters, how do you successfully make a screen translation of a book that’s often written in shorthand and Bridget’s obsessive list-making?

130 lbs. (terrifying slide into obesity—why? why?), alcohol units 6 (excellent), cigarettes 23 (v.g.), calories 2472.

Maguire and company cleverly integrate some diary-keeping into the film, but not obsessively, so we get a v.g. sense of what the book might be like.

But the biggest risk of all—the aplomb that raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic—came when Renee Zellweger was cast as Bridget.

Renee Freaking Zellweger.
Renee “originally from Katy, Texas, U.S. of A.” Zellweger. <
br>Renee “You had me at hello” Zellweger.
Yes, that Renee Zellweger.

How in the Queen’s name could this skinny American girl pull it off?

The answer, my friends, is astoundingly well, thankyouverymuch. Zellweger threw herself into the role, gained 20 pounds and worked with a dialect coach (the same one who curved Gwyneth Paltrow’s accent for Sliding Doors). The result is a chunkified, flawless-voiced, klutzy creation which bears only a passing resemblance to the actress formerly known as Renee Zellweger. Every now and then, someone comes along and completely stamps a character as their own (Vivien Leigh=Scarlett O’Hara, Peter Sellers=Inspector Clouseau, Mike Myers=Austin Powers). Zellweger has done just that with Bridget Jones. She’s funny, she’s vulnerable, she’s unforgettable. Most of all, she's the kind of person you see every day. She's someone you pass on the street...who works in the neighboring cubicle...heck, you might even be married to her. She obsesses about her weight, she makes bad fashion decisions, she says "yes" to cheesecake rather than "no." At long last, an anti-svelte Tinseltown tart, someone real women might be able to relate to. The world is filled with more Bridgets than it is Ally McBeals. And I wouldn't have it any other way, thankyouverymuch.

Zellweger, for all her former skinny good looks, has tapped into what makes Bridget (and the majority of the world's better-half population) tick. You know you’re in the presence of a great performance right from the opening credits as Bridget sits alone in her apartment on New Year’s Eve, drinking and smoking herself into oblivion, and belting out “All By Myself.” Zellweger brings you inside Bridget’s skin in that one scene and from that point on you’re hopelessly stuck tight to this adorable creature. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.

>You might even yell out loud, “You go, girl!”

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