Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Dir. Sharon Maguire
By Lauren Branch
If you were to imagine the quintessential “anti-it girl” raised on Twinkies and humility, you would likely imagine Sharon Maguire’s satirical illustration of the “pathetic” adult female, also known as Bridget Jones. Maguire’s 2001 romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary chronicles Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) as she settles into her early thirties with no man, no kids, and in her mind, no dignity, and no holding back in her newly saturated diary, serving as her womanhood manifesto where she shares her triumphs and tribulations of dating and beyond. She vows to herself that she will get her rubbish together, as in find herself a man and manifest a productive life, before it’s “too late”, as in before her family surrenders all hope in her entirely. Spontaneously, and a bit conveniently, Jones effortlessly stumbles into a torrid affair with her snarky boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) while simultaneously rekindling a dormant semi-relationship with an old acquaintance Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). As she embarks on her new phase of personal empowerment and sexual agency, Jones begins a journal to document her self-help hurdles, embarrassments, and hysterics sparing no details amidst her new chapter.
What really ignites conversation regarding Jones’s portrayal is the principle of it, in that the intention was to convey Jones as a pitiful shell of a woman pre-makeover, when in actuality she was rather normal and realistic. This poses the questions: what constitutes a pathetic woman? Do sweatpants and an imperfect figure solidify a woman’s place in femininity hell? Does a secretary-grade job symbolize failure? These qualities of Jones’s life are not exactly what signal for a self-help reckoning, but rather her inability to exercise agency and decisiveness are what truly call for change. Consequently, Jones’s character development transforms Maguire’s entire narrative for Jones from dependent, relying on the security of a man to achieve fulfillment, to victorious, relying on the willingness to decide to achieve fulfillment. There is a conventional tendency to look down upon female protagonists in romantic comedies as desperate, reliant, or problematic in some sense, without ever considering how their male counterparts compare. Yet, when Bridget Jones embarks on her journey to embrace her womanhood and rid her loneliness, her rise from sad to sassy gives the audience reason enough to root for her in achieving her transformation despite it being centered around a man, and some controversial men at that. The initial object of her affection, the dashing Daniel Cleaver, is the dreamboat nightmare in that his charming appearance and whit are major distractions from his questionable character and integrity. However, the alternative is the slightly wormy yet adorably handsome Mark Darcy who, through a series of misfortunate events involving cheating and a fiancé, is already familiar with Mr. Cleaver and makes it far more apparent to Jones both his and Cleaver’s differing intentions. Even though Cleaver is supposed to be the womanizing handsome devil, there is an unruly ease in finding him increasingly dreamy both in general, obviously, but also to Jones toward the ending bits of the film, yet ultimately we are left with Darcy’s delayed reaction time in assuming his position as Jones’s pick. Swooping in after much persistence, we are left only to ponder the sustainability of Darcy and Jones’s oncoming relationship and whether such a vanilla man can withstand Jones’s inevitable hijinks.
Despite a few cringey gags and dramatized pouts of single Friday nights (ahem, join the club), Bridget Jones’s Diary is a feel-good, true-to-form romantic comedy of sensationalized measure that is sure to make you feel less guilty about fantasizing of dreamy lovers whilst, yes, chugging that wine.