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Bridget Jones Beautiful Return In Mad About The Boy
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Bridget Jones is back for a fourth instalment with many of your favourites returning, however this film, is not quite what you’d expect.
With director Michael Morris at the helm Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy delivers something different, whilst maintaining the magic we’ve come to know and love.
Michael James sat down to chat with director Michael Morris about bringing Bridget back to the big screen.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
It has been 24 years since Renée Zellweger first introduced the world to the goofy and loveable character of Bridget Jones.
Since then we have watched her navigate love triangles, muddle through life, build a successful career and when we last left her, find herself married with a husband and child.
It would have been easy enough to put the franchise to rest after Bridget Jones Baby, taking on the fourth instalment of a film franchise is always a brave move, but Michael Morris and his team found something new and it has paid off.
“It’s a big jump,” he said.
“It’s a big jump to go into anything that has an existing presence actually, because it means that you’re suddenly part of people’s lives and people care, really deeply. I’m one of those people that really cares about films and film franchises that I grew up with, so it’s a big responsibility in that sense.”
“I think at its heart like there was a film here that I really wanted to make, there’s a there’s a film about this woman in this particular time in her life and what it takes to get her feeling like she can get back in and start living her life again. Not just sort of like coping and surviving. And that was a film that I just love. And the fact that it was Bridget and all of the world that comes with that just made it more richer.”
Mad About The Boy picks up nearly ten years since we last saw Bridget eventually marrying her on again off again lover Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), however like many of life’s trials and tribulations, theirs was not a happy ending.
The film picks four years since Mark Darcy died on a humanitarian trip overseas, leaving Bridget and their now two children widowed and fatherless.
It’s a sombre start to a franchise that we so often associate with light hearted humour but the balance is captured beautifully as Morris manages to find the light and humour during Bridget’s time of darkness, something that is part of the differences that he brings to this film from the previous instalments.
“I feel like it was always going to be different because I don’t think I could have made the other films, they were the product of different people” he said.
He also acknowledged a lot of time has passed since the first film, something that he and the cast were acutely aware of when creating this one.
“This is something that was really important to Renee and really important to Hugh when I started talking to them at the very beginning. We’re all older now. The films have been around for 25 years.”
“We we shouldn’t and can’t and won’t keep making the same jokes the same way.”
“Like it just doesn’t feel right. Like life acts on you whether you like it or not. And so in our life, like our lives sort of start out in the genre of, you know, like family movies. And then it moves to the genre of like romcom. Sometimes it moves to the genre of like action or horror depending on how your life is going. And then, ultimately I think when you get to where Bridget is in this film it becomes a blur of genres.”
“I think there isn’t a single genre anymore for where she is in her life and that was what really interested me and I think that probably influenced theٴDzԱ.”
That is exactly how it feels watching Mad About The Boy, it doesn’t feel like one genre, rather taking bits of things we love and know from the franchise and exploring more of Bridget and her world.
Familiar faces return to Bridget Jones
For nearly four years Bridget has barely left the house as she struggles to cope with her grief whilst try to nurture her children, Billy and Mabel through their loss.
It’s time for Bridget to try and put her life back together and move on, a monumental task in the face of her loss that Bridget attempts with varying success as she tries to return to work, enter the dating world again and be a mum.
As always assisting Bridget are her friends who have always been dutifully by her side guiding her as they too navigate the different stages of their own lives.
Mad About The Boy successfully returns many familiar faces to the franchise including Emma Thompson who returns as the sharp tounged Dr Rawlings after her memorable performance in Bridget Jones Baby.
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Universal Studios
Shazzer (Sally Phillps) and Jude (Shirley Henderson) provide ample comic relief once again, however notably absent is Bridgets very gay friend Tom who held his own place in the first two instalments as the self absorbed former pop star. Tom made a brief exit during the third film, leaving to have a baby with his partner and did not return for this one.
Also providing ample comedic relief is Hugh Grant returning as Daniel Cleaver once again.
Returning Grant to the franchise was an interesting decision, one that could have turned out badly after it was revealed at the end of the third instalment that he had been found alive after Bridget had already attended his funeral.
However rather than placing Daniel as a central love interest to Bridget again, we see him return as a long time friend, playing uncle to her two children and still existing in the peripherals of her life.
Still a sleazy womaniser Grant delivers Daniel as a perfect addition to the film adding comic relief and light in perfect doses and Michael was very glad to have him return.
“Life has moved on for Bridget, like her life has continued in, the river of life goes. And so, what was once like a ‘will I or won’t I’ with with Daniel has matured into kind of a lovely friendship actually” he says of the pair.
Even though he is the same sort of irascible guy that he always was but his relationshipto Bridget has changed. Even though he’s the same, I love that and so to me, it was just really a case of like, can we get Hugh to say yes?”
“It’s been lots of years since he’s played Daniel Cleaver and it was just like pretty magical when he said yes.”
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Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) enters the franchise as Bridget’s much younger love interest Roxster, he is charismatic, charming and gorgeous all in equals measures.
However his presence in Bridget’s life serves more than eye candy and cheap gags, Roxster serves as an important catalyst for Bridget to move on and find herself again.
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Also joining the cast is Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays teacher Mr. Wallaker to Bridget’s son Billy. Whilst he doesn’t serve as a love interest to Bridget in the way she has previously found herself with Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy, he is a strong presence in the film popping in and out of her romantic peripherals as he becomes more present in her life.
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Universal Studios
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is more than a comedy and delivers far more depth and complexity that we’ve come to know from the films before, it truly serves as a beautiful exploration of love, loss, grief, moving on and letting go.
The final third of the film delivers incredibly unexpectedly powerful moments that will leave you laughing, smiling and sobbing in equal measures.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is out in cinemas now.
Watch the full interview with Michael Morris below.
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