Why Bridget Jones is Dead to Me
*Why Bridget Jones Can go Fuck Herself*
Let me start by saying I am not a Bridget Jones snob (I’m
talking about the films here). I don’t have a problem with a well made rom-com.
In fact, I bloody love them. I was surprised by how many of my friends had no
interest in going to see the latest film when it came out. I don’t remember
people being so stuck up about the first one – maybe they were and I just
didn’t notice or maybe we were just all younger and not so discerning in our
film choices (Muppets Treasure Island anyone?). I thought the first films were
pretty alright – good for a mild laugh and good to watch someone on screen who
seemed as much as a fuck up as we all felt. And so, when the latest instalment,
Bridget Jones’s Baby (spoiler alert) was released, I was looking forward to
seeing it. Partly for the sake of nostalgia, partly to meet up with an old
friend again (to be clear, I mean Bridget).
I left the
cinema feeling thoroughly, punched-in-the-gut depressed, like everything I
believed had been blown up, like the oh-so-comfy slightly kooky colourful rug I
loved had been pulled from under me in one fell cinema swoop. It’s taken me a
while to get my thoughts together and to work out exactly what it is about the
whole sorry affair that has pushed my buttons so. I’m still not clear, but here
are some thoughts…
First off, lets address the big,
botoxed elephant in the room – Renee Can-you-tell-who-I-am-yet Zellweger. She
wasn’t the most popular choice to begin with – and rightly so I think. I know,
I know, the whole point of being an actor or a writer is that you can
re-imagine yourself and put yourself, convincingly, in other people’s shoes. I
get that – but come on now, within reason please! I was pleasantly surprised by
her in the first films. I semi-admired that she put on weight for the role,
while at the same time despising that it was such a hardship for her to come
off whatever the latest kale and urine type Hollywood diet she was on to do so.
Anyway, she did it, and we related to her – what 30 something woman hasn’t had
weight woes, after all (and if you haven’t then you should probably stop
reading – this isn’t the article for you – lucky bitch). She smoked, she drank
too much, she lived alone, she had solid, slightly weird friends, she was
trying to forge some kind of a career and she repeatedly made a twat out of
herself. It was relatable and it was funny, if a little cheddar-laden.
Fast
forward 12 years and Bridget is a completely different beast. She’s now reached
her ‘ideal’ weight of a size 8 – YES, OF COURSE SHE FUCKING HAS, because it’s
quite common for women to squeeze into a size 8 in their 40s as their
metabolism is completely giving up on them, THAT ALWAYS HAPPENS. It’s not even
the unrealistic slant of this, it’s the way that it’s just randomly dropped
into the start of the film that that’s what’s happened and then never referred
to again. I imagine it’s because this time around Zellweger couldn’t be arsed
to go through the harsh regime of eating bacon sandwiches and other such food
of the Devil to make herself look ‘normal’ – maybe because she realises, as a
40 something woman, how much harder it is to get the weight off again (see
earlier point re: metabolism). So, there’s that, which is irksome, but more
than that is the face. I mean, I know she’s had a hard time in the press over
it but rightly so, I say. She is almost unrecognisable. This might wash with an
American audience (and let’s face it, that’s who these films have been made for
ultimately), where cosmetic surgery is common place and they’re used to people
morphing into other-wordly, scraped back versions of their former selves that
are unable to form an expression. But it doesn’t work here. And that’s the
point – Bridget is British. In the original columns of her conception, her very
essence is British, she is the embodiment of very British womanisms – drinking
too much, smoking too much, worrying about weight, generally being a bit of a
twat. Without wishing to sound like a member of the BNP, Bridget is British and
should’ve been played by someone British who understands her. I spent the whole
movie watching this strange-faced, elasticated, skinny version of someone who I
knew would be running back to her trailer to recover by inhaling some imported
oxygen or eating a baby’s foreskin. The whole point of the cinema is to suspend
your disbelief and I simply couldn’t do that with her in this film.
So she’s my
main problem, but there are others – for example, we see far less of the
friends in this film. Maybe that’s a reflection of life in your 40s compared to
your 30s, maybe a lot of stuff was cut – either way, they were an essential
part of Bridget’s story and now they’re just an aside and the film is less
funny for it.
The swoon-worthy American – OF COURSE there’s a swoon-worthy
American. Really? REALLY? In all my time in London, I have never met an
American who looks even remotely like Patrick Dempsey and if I did, I would
bloody well end up with him instead of an uptight lawyer (except I wouldn’t
because he would have some stunning, American 20 something, tight-arsed,
perky-breasted wife on his arm). I know, if films were completely realistic
they’d be bloody boring – but really?
And, of course, the ending. I got the same sense of being
let down that I did from Sex and the City (I was never team Big – why would you
be – he was an arrogant, misogynistic, old wanker).
So
basically, taking all that into consideration, I feel like the problem is that
Bridget has been utterly Americanised and it has taken all of her appeal away.
If I wanted to see a saccharine, unbelievable rom-com filled with demi-god
males and plastic females I’d stick with the back catalogue thanks – Maid in
Manhattan, The Bounty-Hunter, Wanderlust, Made of Honour, Failure to Launch…The
list goes on. And on. And on.
Bridget was always something a bit different. And now she’s
not. You can’t really blame Zellweger – she doesn’t know any better – but Helen
Fielding, Sharon Maguire and Emma Thompson – Emma bloody Thompson – you should
all be ashamed of yourselves.
I have a single
friend who, when I asked if she wanted to go and see the film with me, replied
‘I don’t really want to see a Richard Curtis version of singledom in 40s’. I
tried to tempt her with wine, on me – ‘it would still make me hurl’ was her
response. In hindsight, I think she made the right choice.
