Truly, madly, ditsy

Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre, Nov 29, 2004

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Directed by Beeban Kidron
Based on the novel by Helen Fielding
Written by Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis, Adam Brooks
Starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
PG 13 / 108 minutes
Universal Pictures
Opens December 1

Oh no, she’s back. The girl with relationship problems. She who made us laugh at her relationship problems and made us think it’s okay to do that. And she still has problems. But you shan’t sing poor unfortunate soul.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason takes place four months after the events of Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001). Renée Zellweger returns in the Edge of Reason, yet again as the overstuffed self-invented career maiden Bridget Jones.

Jones is enjoying her fresh status as girlfriend of the classy human rights lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). She’s also getting a career boost as a rather adventurous broadcast journalist. Everything is blissfully fine until the smooth-talking Daniel Cleaver (a very tired-looking Hugh Grant) returns to look at her granny panties. Such a quandary Jones finds herself into: on one hand her perfect boyfriend is being seduced by the ultimate karibal, and conveniently on the other, the seductive bad boy is making lousy passes at her again. My, my, the things people have to worry about.

The more hilarious original was directed by Sharon Maguire. Director Beeban Kidron (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!) presents Bridget Jones as even more unstable than the last time. Whereas previously Jones worried about too much weight and too less professional and romantic events, she now has to contend with a profusion of all three at the same time.

Unfortunately the story writing isn’t as heavyweight as its main character, with a lot of stuff as repeated antics either from the first installment, or as gags taken from other comedies. Firth and Grant are wallpaper patterns on the side, mere cartoon cutouts of their obligatory characters. By now we accept that Zellweger is Jones and Jones is Zellweger – the two are perfectly interchangeable (plus or minus the on-screen weight). The soundtrack is interesting as well, half of the time upbeat and campy, the other half annoying – very much like Jones herself. The formerly ubiquitous diary is not omnipresent as before (maybe because diaries are so Old World, she should be blogging like the rest of us are). Instead of insights into the single person’s soul, she now gets insults from her co-workers and so-called friends.

So what do we have here? An uneven comedy about a woman having difficulties staying in a proper relationship, always ending up in improper (and almost improbable) situations. It kinda works in an Ally McBeal way. We’re supposed to laugh at Jones’ silliness, her tangent way of grasping hitherto unexplored dimensions of the romantic universe. If only we can make sense out of that unnecessary story trip to Thailand. And figure out why she ever doubted her soul mate, shame on her. Bridget Jones will take you to the edge of your wits, not as much as she did the first time, but she still will.

That or I still don’t understand women.