Bridget Jones’s Diary
Bridget Jones’s Diary is a 2001 romantic comedy film directed by Sharon Maguire and written by Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies, and Helen Fielding. A co-production of the United Kingdom, United States and France, it is based on Fielding’s 1996 novel of the same name, which is a reinterpretation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice. The adaptation stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, a 32-year-old English single woman, who writes a diary which focuses on the things she wishes to happen in her life. However, her life changes when two men vie for her affection, portrayed by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones appear in supporting roles. Production began in August 2000 and ended in November 2000, and took place largely on location in London and the home counties.
Bridget Jones’s Diary premiered on 4 April 2001 in the United Kingdom and was released to theatres on 13 April 2001 simultaneously in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It grossed over $280 million worldwide and received positive reviews, with critics highlighting Zellweger’s titular performance, which garnered her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Over the years, it has been hailed as a cult film as well as part of the English pop culture, with Bridget Jones being cited as a British culture icon.
The success of the film spawned a Bridget Jones franchise with two equally successful sequels being released, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016).
Bridget Jones is 32, single, engagingly imperfect, and worried about her weight. She works at a publishing company in London where her main focus is fantasizing about her handsome boss, Daniel Cleaver.
At her parents’ New Year party, Bridget is introduced to Mark Darcy, a childhood acquaintance and barrister, son of her parents’ friends. Mark finds Bridget foolish and vulgar and Bridget thinks Mark is arrogant and rude, and is disgusted by his novelty Christmas jumper. Overhearing Mark grumble to his mother about her attempt to set him up with “a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother”, Bridget decides to turn her life around. She begins keeping a diary to chronicle her attempts to stop smoking, stop drinking, lose weight, and find her Mr. Right.
Bridget and Daniel begin to flirt heavily at work, ahead of an important book launch, at which Bridget bumps into Mark and his glamorous but haughty colleague Natasha. Bridget leaves with Daniel and they have dinner, despite Daniel’s notorious reputation as a womaniser. Daniel tells Bridget that he and Mark were formerly friends but says Mark slept with his fiancée, for which they now hate each other. Bridget and Daniel start dating.
Bridget is invited to a family party, originally a “Tarts & Vicars” costume party, which is tied into a mini-break weekend with Daniel. They spend the day before the party at a country inn where Mark and Natasha are also staying. The morning of the party, Daniel says he must return to London for work and leaves Bridget (dressed as a Playboy bunny) to endure the party alone. When she returns to London & drops in on Daniel, she discovers his American colleague, Lara in flagrante, naked in his flat. Bridget cuts ties with him and immediately searches for a new career. She lands a new job in television, and when Daniel pleads with her to stay, she declares that she would “rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein’s arse”.
Bridget attends a friend’s long-standing dinner party, where she is the only single person. Once again she crosses paths with Mark and Natasha. Mark privately confesses to Bridget that, despite her faults, he likes her “just as you are”. Sometime later, as a well-known barrister, he allows Bridget an exclusive TV interview in a landmark legal case which boosts her career and allows her to begin to see him in a different light.
Bridget begins to develop feelings for Mark, and when she misguidedly and somewhat disastrously, attempts to cook her own birthday dinner party, he comes to her rescue. After a happy dinner celebration with Bridget’s friends and Mark, a drunken Daniel arrives and temporarily monopolises Bridget’s attention. Mark leaves, but returns to challenge Daniel and the two fight in the street, eventually smashing through a window of a Greek restaurant. They eventually call a draw only to have Daniel mutter “wanker” at Mark as he turns away and which only Mark can hear; Mark knocks Daniel down; shocked, Bridget chides Mark and he leaves, but after a self-serving appeal from Daniel, she rejects him as well.
Bridget’s mother, Pamela, has left Bridget’s father Colin and begun an affair with perma-tanned shopping channel presenter Julian. When the affair ends, she returns to the Jones’s family home with an unintentional revelation: Mark and Daniel’s falling-out resulted from Daniel (then Mark’s best friend at Cambridge University) sleeping with Mark’s wife which Mark walked in on, not the other way around.
At the Darcys’ ruby wedding anniversary party the same day, Bridget confesses her feelings for Mark, only to learn that he and Natasha have accepted jobs in New York and are on the verge of an engagement, according to Mark’s father. Bridget interrupts the toast with an emotionally moving speech which peters out as she realises the hopelessness of her position; her words clearly have an effect on Mark, but he still flies to New York. Bridget’s friends rally to repair her broken heart with a surprise trip to Paris, but as they are about to leave, Mark appears at Bridget’s flat.
Just as they are about to kiss for the first time, Bridget flies to her bedroom to change into sexier underwear. Mark peeks at her diary, finds her older unflattering opinions of him, and leaves. Bridget, realizing what he has read and that she might lose him again, runs outside after him in the snow in her tigerskin-print underwear and a skimpy jumper, but is unable to find him. Disheartened, she is about to return home when Mark appears with a new diary for her “to make a fresh start”. They kiss in the snow-covered street, and Bridget remarks that “nice boys don’t kiss like that”, to which Mark retorts “Oh, yes, they fucking do.”
