Sex and the Single Girl

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a slim figure, successful career and dashing boyfriend must be in want of a modern-day singleton.

Welcome to the world of Bridget Jones, a neurotic 32-year-old publishing lackey whose life would be complete if she could only reduce the circumference of her thighs by three inches (1.5 inches each), visit the gym three times a week (not merely to buy a sandwich) and form a functional relationship with a responsible adult. Created by journalist Helen Fielding for a weekly column in the London Independent, Bridget Jones and her Diary quickly became a literary phenomenon as her obsession with her weight, alcohol and cigarette consumption and desire to land a man struck a nerve with women the world over. A comedic combination of both Ally McBeal and the comic strip character Cathy, it was inevitable that Bridget eventually find her way from the page and onto the big screen.

At heart, Bridget Jones’s Diary is simply a modern day adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Like Elizabeth Bennett, Bridget is initially put off by the alluring yet aloof Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), a recently divorced and fantastically wealthy human rights barrister that everyone is trying to set her up with; instead, she finds herself falling for her rakish, yet caddishly womanizing boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). In her romantic and dietary pursuits, she bumbles and humiliates herself in scene after scene, endures the company of officious “smug marrieds” with the help of her singleton friends Shazzer, Jude and Tom, and puts up with her middling and flighty mother before emerging triumphant.

In the hands of familiar scribes Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and A Funeral, Notting Hill) and Andrew Davies (the BBC’s 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice), Fielding’s novel—which is literally written in the style of diary, down to the last minute—is molded into a hilarious, albeit predictable love triangle. However, in collaboration with Fielding, the writers’ increased prominence of Daniel and Darcy (even giving them a clumsy, yet satisfying fist-fight) is given at the expense of the Bridget’s quirky friends and family. First time director Sharon Maguire (Fielding’s inspiration for Shazzer) keeps the film moving at an easy pace, skillfully blending slapstick and an upbeat soundtrack into the story.

Ultimately, the heart of Bridget Jones’s Diary is Zellweger. Despite all the controversy concerning the casting of the petite Texan as the British Bridget (London’s Evening Standard declared the decision an act of “clunking, Hollywood idiocy,” noting that casting Zellweger as Bridget Jones was like casting Jude Law as the Elephant Man), Zellweger absolutely sparkles and charms in the role. With an additional and visibly obvious 20 pounds added to her normally petite frame, it initially appears as if the filmmakers have missed the point of Bridget Jones in making her a tad too tubby. After all, in the novel, at an average of 124 pounds, Bridget is decidedly not overweight—she merely obsesses about feeling “ashamed and repulsive” and as if she “actually feels the fat splurging out from my body” when there is clearly no reason for it. However, it is exactly her appearance that makes her more endearing—she gives Bridget a warm glow that makes it absolutely believable that two devastatingly handsome men would end up in a full brawl in the streets of London over her. In the novel, I always thought it was a bit strange that an internationally known human rights lawyer would be interested in Bridget in the first place. But in the film, Zellweger brings in Bridget’s humanity and vulnerability beyond simply the lists and figures. You’ll be hooked by her performance by the time she performs her rendition of “All By Myself” over the opening credits in true Bridget form—in her pajamas and clutching a carton of ice-cream.

Following his turn as the villain in Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks, Grant is caddishly handsome as Bridget’s Cleaver, who is given sounder treatment in the movie than in the novel. Whether slyly flirting over office e-mail or whispering dirty names to his conquest, Grant displays his inner rogue with a sort of sleazy charm that seems to suit him much more than his previous “oopsy-daisy” roles as an inarticulate romantic with foppish hair.

And in an amusing twist of intertextuality, Colin Firth, known simply as a wet T-shirt to American Austen princesses, is delicious as Darcy. Firth, having previously played Austen’s Darcy in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice television miniseries, returns to romantic hero-dom after playing the discarded husband in both The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love. He silently observes Bridget’s liaisons with the deceptive “Cleave,” slowly revealing his growing tenderness for the girl, until he can take no more. Granted, it’s a role that he is all too familiar with, but when he tells Bridget that he likes her “just as you are,” I melted and started wondering where my Darcy was.

My main quibble with the film lies in that fact that although the film presents Bridget as an archetype for modern singles, her predicament is still somewhat inaccessible while it strives to be universal. However, as a modern singleton, I was thoroughly enchanted by the film.