Dir: Michael Morris | Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Hugh Grant, Renee Zellweger | Comedy UK US France 2025
How things have changed since middle-aged widow Jeanne Dielman strutted her stuff in 1970s Brussels. Life couldn’t be more different for her modern day counterpart Bridget Jones, in this latest edition of the saga, laughingly entitled “Mad About the Boy“. And is certainly full of laughs in a tongue in cheek way
Bridget lost her partner Mark Darcy four years ago, on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan. But life seems upbeat and fun for the single mother to nine-year-old Billy and four-year-old Mabel, and their godfather Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant in fabulous form).
In leafy Hampstead, Bridget’s back on the dating scene, in a lackadaisical way, with a variety of apps. Something dear Jeanne never dreamed of back in dreary old Quai de Commerce, fifty years ago. ‘Toy boys’ weren’t even invented back in the day, instead Jeanne resorted to earning a few bob from a tawdry selection of paid male visitors. Bridget, meanwhile, is foot-loose and fancy-free enjoying a much freer love life, and with a much younger man in tow, Roxster McDuff. She’s also enjoying a dalliance with her son’s science teacher, Scott Wallaker.
But is she more of a feminist figure than Jeanne? That’s for you to decide. Certainly, times have changed and attitudes to women, dating and marriage are looser and far more liberated. And Jeanne was a much more buttoned-down character.
Bridget, now 51, has a thicker skin and more laid back view of life. A philosophical ‘girl about town’, she has an upbeat take in this fun and frothy romcom. Any angst she may feel is still there, but with much lighter attitude to getting the dinner ready. Nowadays, rather like the flirty 1930s ‘Anything Goes’. Even frozen peas! @MeredthTaylor
IN UK AND FRENCH CINEMAS 13 FEBRUARY 2025