Bridget Jones's Diary 2001

8.4/10. Bridget Jones’s Diary could be written off as a “chick flick.” It features a woman as its protagonist, at a time when, with a few notable exceptions, that wasn’t really done for films meant to appeal to a broader audience. It’s centered on the titular Bridget Jones’s love life with a humorous take on the subject, meaning it’s likely to be found in the “romantic comedy” section of your streaming app/video store/parents’ movie shelf. And it’s both co-written and directed by women, another sign that, even in 2001, the studio had a specific target in mind.

But what makes the film so enjoyable and so resonant is that it offers both a specificity and a universality. That makes it very true to capturing the experiences of a particular sort of person in a particular time in our culture in a particular way, but also true to the more general experience of anyone, regardless of gender, struggling to navigate the snarls and tangles of dating and romance, with a wry, self-deprecating wit that should be pleasing to all-comers. It’s a nice reminder that just as in the scores of Hollywood films written, directed, and starring men offer a particular point of view and yet find large, diverse audiences, films written, directed, and starring women are just as apt to offer a unique and very specific point of view, but one also that can be extrapolated, understood, and appreciated by anyone.

The film gets a boost on that front from its source material. Not the book, penned by screenplay co-writer Helen Fielding, on which it’s based (which, I must admit, I haven’t read), but from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the classic novel which provides the loose structure for Bridget Jones’s Diary. In that novel too, a story even more centered in a particular time and place has had a lasting appeal as great literature. But despite following many of the same beats as the novel, Diary isn’t just playing follow the leader. Instead, it uses that old story of the difficulties of finding love as someone who doesn’t quite fit into the strictures and timetables of the age, and updates it for the modern one.

Much of that comes through in the film’s protagonist. Renee Zellweger gives a superb performance, where she allows herself to be goofy, vulnerable, self-loathing, desperate, earnest, and to have a disproportionate focus placed on her rear end. It’s probably a bridge too far to call the performance brave, but in contrast to so many films and television shows where even the characters who are supposed to be regular shmoes just trying to hack it seem impeccably put together and preternaturally with it, Zellweger’s Jones rings true as a real person. She is not merely quirky; she drinks and smokes and lipsyncs poorly by herself in her apartment, and she can be, at times, a mess.

But that’s what makes her endearing. Bridget Jones is not perfect. She makes occasional bad decisions, bluffs her way through job interviews and TV interviews alike, and true to her literary forbear, tells off the one man who appreciates her for who she is. At the same time, she feels like someone you know, maybe even someone you’ve been, doing your best to jump into a conversation at a party, fighting your attraction to a wrong-headed pretty face, and wondering if real love will simply be something that eludes you.

And Diary makes its star take her lumps in the process of finding it, particularly in her travails with her two love interests over the course of the film. Hugh Grant is superb as Daniel Cleaver, giving his character a slickness beneath the boyish exterior he’s used in his usual romcom turns that makes the deception and reveal that he’s a cad click. Colin Firth essentially reprises his role as Mr. Darcy from the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice adaptation, and brings the same exterior grumpiness but core decency that makes both iterations of the character a success. The film does a nice job at the essential twists in character for the two men in Bridget Jones’s life.

The film’s most interesting diversion from the source material, however, comes from the other most important guy in Bridget’s world – her father. When the elder Joneses separate so Mrs. Jones can pursue a plum-skinned host of a QVC-lite show, it’s initially played as just another parental hassle for Bridget to have to deal with. But when Bridget’s parents reconcile, the film treats Bridget’s mum with more kindness and empathy than Jane Austen shows Mrs. Bennet.

When Mrs. Jones apologizes to her husband, but explains that he and Bridget always had their little jokes that demeaned her, that made her feel put out and less than and helped spur her to seek her fortunes elsewhere. And Mr. Jones seems to acknowledging this, feigning uncertainty for a moment before embracing his wife and declaring that his wife doesn’t make sense without her. It’s a quiet, heartwarming moment, but it spurs on Bridget’s later acts in the film. It works as a realization for her that even her father, one of the few people in the film Bridget actually admires, can mess up the relationship that makes him happy by being too casually cruel and not appreciating the people closest to him deep down. There is, then, still hope for her to overcome the same.

And, of course, she does. The film’s little fake out at the end is a bit too on the nose, and there’s tropes of the genre that pop up and manage to irk from time to time. Bridget Jones’s Diary, however, is a funny and at times touching film, that isn’t afraid to have a fistfight turn into a beleaguered half-hearted singing of happy birthday or find the heart at the core of its goofiest characters. There’s an arch wit but a sincerity throughout that buoys the film in its stronger and weaker moments.

That’s why the movie works whether you’re a woman in Bridget Jones’s position, or a happily married man like yours truly. The struggle for love and acceptance is a universal one, and yet by making the story told so distinct and specific to Bridget, it feels real and relatable and familiar to everyone who’s been through the same thing, even if not in the exact same terms. Love is love, as the new saying goes, and the quest to find it is as difficult, funny, and absurd, regardless of who’s on it.

The main reason why the movie was so much better for me than the book is the fact that Bridget was actually likable here. I mean, yes, she's still a completely mess and truly beyond awkward 95% of the time, but it's almost always done in a way that's loveable and endearing. She's not self-absorbed or pathetic (like in the book), but instead she’s kind, gentle and even funny. She’s literally the queen of second hand embarrassment and we all love her for it.

I also understood her romantic choices a lot better in this movie than I did in the book. First of all, Hugh Grant plays Daniel in a way that actually almost makes him seem charming rather than despicable and disgusting (like he was in the book), so it makes sense why Bridget would fall for him at first (before she sees his true nature, of course). It also made more sense why she disliked and distrusted Mark at first, since Daniel lied about Mark sleeping with and stealing his fiancee (which, once again, did not happen in the book, so there really was no reason for Bridget not to immediately choose Mark then, who was clearly already the better option). Nonetheless, I don’t want to say Mark is perfect either, though. I don’t quite understand why he kept dating with and even got engaged to Natasha when he was clearly in love with Bridget. That’s kind of mean to the other girl and almost makes me feel like he’s not a great person either. However, he is still better than Daniel by miles and miles, because at least he always chose Bridget and clearly adores her, but yea, neither romantic option is truly great.

All in all though, this movie was just very charming and lovely. Bridget’s awkwardness was entertaining and often times even cute.