I was ambivalent about seeing the fourth
Bridget Jones movie (I've seen them all) but being in a Spanish town where it was an accessible English movie, and the time of day was right, I paid my Euros and sauntered into Puerto Banus'
Red Dog Cinemas. The film
Mad About the Boy (dir. Michael Morris) was in original English with Spanish subtitles ('VOSE'). There were only about a dozen in attendance on a sunny Costa afternoon and, yup, mainly women, with a good variety holding glasses of white wine - hilarious. But the "print" (isn't everything digital?) had a sepia bleached out look that made it difficult to watch. Nevertheless our girl,
Bridget (Renée Zellweger) was back. Now 55 and a widow after the love of her life (
Darcy - Colin Firth) died as a humanitarian aid worker. Friends coax her to try to start anew. But you know how it is for "women of a certain age." But one day an Adonis in the name of Roxster (Leo Woodall) comes to her aid embarrassingly on the
Hampstead Heath (I guessed the movie was filmed in Hampstead - ain't I good?). Her gal pals - and women in the audience - swoon at the new boy toy (especially his doffing of a wet white shirt). All goes, initially, according to plan and our girl is in seventh (sexual) heaven. The film has generally had good response but what Bridget film hasn't through I found
Bridget Jones Baby (2016, Sharon Maguire) a little dull. But maybe that's because I was in a
Paris cinema expecting the movie to be in English! Let's face it, Zellweger is perfect in the role playing the frumpish awkward singleton that LOADS of women, even beautiful ones, can identify with. Though in reality Zellweger is a sex bomb and in personal life has wrapped arms with some of the biggest names in show biz. I'll give this film three and half out of five stars because its script is tight, it is overall sprightly though some of the characters are forced (think school teacher
Wallaker - Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the whole genre is getting a bit repetitive.
It just so happened that the night before, on
Criterion Channel, I caught the same Z girl in a 2003 film
Down with Love (Peyton Read), a hilarious take on the old Rock Hudson - Doris Day movies, full of misunderstandings in the then battle of the sexes. Doris Day a feminist icon? Think about it. I hadn't heard of the film or had forgotten about it or it didn't get wide distribution. Anyway, it was great to see a pretty accurate re-creation of the early 1960s - fashions, sets and even hackneyed era dialogue - with Ewan McGregor in the Rock Hudson role. Even Tony Randall, RIP, stars. The Z girl shines as she usually does in a movie worth seeing because it's a modern throwback that's pretty accurately done.
