What? Bridget Jones without Daniel Cleaver?

What? Bridget Jones without Daniel Cleaver?

Should I take this chance? I am a huge fan of Bridget Jones and I did immensely enjoy the first two films. But film number three ? In my imagination Bridget has been happily married to Mark Darcy ever since 2004, and I kind of cherish that fantasy. Is it possible both to not ruin my illusion, and show Bridget´s life without one self-imposed catastrophe hitting her only to be followed by more, which would probably change the notion of happy ever after? Being number three, the chances that Bridget Jones´ Baby would be any good were very slim, everyone knows that a follow up movie rarely lives up to its predecessor. Anyways, my curiosity told me to go.

So I ended up chancing it, remembering glorious moments with delightfully anti-heroic Bridget, delivering foot-in-mouth remarks leaving me crying with laughter. Or when locked up on cocaine charges she oddly enough ends up performing “Like a virgin” wearing a pink bra over her smudged t-shirt. Or when after time consuming search for just the right dress, she triumphantly steps out of a cab only to be disappointingly soaked in water by a passing bus in that very crucial moment where she is about to declare her love to the incarnation of prudence Mark Darcy himself.

I entered with sort of mixed expectations, but soon I found myself shamelessly laughing at the morbidly funny funeral scene where series of long legged Bimbo teenage girls had shown up to mourn over the loss of Daniel Cleaver, none of them quite grasping which role they played in his legacy. Ironically fitting.

I felt my expectations rise as Bridget having made it as a successful producer but still the good old cheerfully clumsy, speak- before –you- think Bridget started to stir up trouble for herself again. I began to get comfy in my chair. I mean, you´ve just got to adore her for it! You can just sit there and laugh all you want, knowing of course in reality it is yourself and your own insufficiencies that are in this way made small and insignificant. Wow, you´re not half as clumsy as she is. What a relief. And she still gets Mr. Right in the end. I figure that if you´re just half as charming as she is, you can remain hopeful for your own future romances.

Encompassed in this delightfully British setting we love to love I had to surrender. The romantic implications, the charming (and very hot) Jack Dempsey and, of course the hopelessly stiff and stuck up Mark Darcy made us all ask: How badly would Bridget step in it this time? Well, take a wild guess.

Should you go and watch this? The answer is YES, get your arse in gear and just go!

by Lajla Nielsen-Refs
Layla studies English at Århus University and teaches stagecraft.