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BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON Send This Review to a Friend
At first “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” is funny. Renée Zellweger, having gained enough pounds to look sadly overweight as Bridget, is nonetheless darling and projects Bridget’s happy state at having enjoyed a sex-filled relationship in London with adoring Colin Firth as sophisticated human rights lawyer Mark Darcy. But pangs of fear and jealousy set in when she spies him with a sexy assistant and makes a fool of herself. The ensuing screenwriting game is to see how many awkward situations the heroine can be plopped into, and the diminishing returns plunge the film into silliness and ultimate boredom.
For one thing, Bridget is so klutzy that one wonders how a guy like Darcy could love her so much. Then Hugh Grant as her old flame, the womanizing Daniel, turns up again and unsteadies her. Juxtaposing the two men is a predictable gambit. When the men got into a fight in the original “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” that was ridiculous enough. But to stage yet another brawl adds to the absurdity.
By the time Bridget gets tossed into prison in Thailand for unwittingly carrying drugs, the story becomes totally ridiculous, especially in the scenes in which she is in the midst of assorted Thai women prisoners and they start singing like Madonna. Give us a break. It took four writers to do the screenplay--Andrew Davis, the novel’s author Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis and Adam Brooks. Direction is by Beeban Kidron.
Bridget’s romantic complications are eventually sorted out, but not before there is a twist involving Darcy’s long-legged, beautiful assistant Rebecca, played by the beautiful Jacinda Barrett. Anything to seem contemporary. What started out to be quite amusing has grown increasingly tiresome. A Universal Pictures release.
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