Everyone's out to get Bridget Jones!

Ronjita Das

Unrealistic. Entertaining. Bizarre.

Three words that come to my head as I walk out of the theatre, after watching the screen adaptation of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary.

Unrealistic, because it is hard to imagine that a 32-year-old woman can be so clumsy, have such an inferiority complex and do everything wrong, every time.

Entertaining, because you just can't stop laughing at Bridget Jones' hysterics.

Bizarre, because you really wonder what the director is trying to say.

Bridget Jones doesn't have any boyfriends (though her mother tries her hand at matchmaking at every New Year at the Turkey curry lunches that she hosts). She drinks too much, smokes even more. And she has a weight problem.

Her resolutions each year are the same: Get a man, drink less, quit smoking and get rid of those extra pounds. And each year, she doesn't do any better than the last.

Till her boss Daniel (Hugh Grant) shows interest in her. Her world changes. She feels she has (at last) found the love of her life. Only to find that he is already engaged to someone else.

As her world falls apart, she rediscovers Mark (Colin Firth), a wealthy barrister (Bridget had met him at the previous Turkey curry lunch). Of course, luck is never on her side. Mark is seeing someone.

Is she destined to spend a single life? Or will Hugh Grant come back to her? Or is it Mark, who is written on her cards?

Director Sharon Maguire doesn't have a great script in hand which probably accounts for why she tries her hand at everything: Comedy, emotion, even a fight scene.

At the end of it all, you wonder what she wants to say. The only thing that could get the film going is its humour.

But then again, what is with Bridget Jones and her persecution complex?

Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones) fits the clumsy 32-year-old who can never get anything right in her life, replete with the British accent.

The film revolves around her entirely, leaving Hugh Grant with very little screen time. With an ill-etched Daniel to contend with, Hugh Grant is hardly present in the second half of the film.

Mark (Colin Firth), on the other hand, has the meatier part -- that's only because he has more screen time. Few questions though: When did he really start liking Bridget? And since she is projected as such a loser, what made this wealthy barrister fall in love with her?

Word of advice: Don't think much while watching this film. Watch it, enjoy it, forget it.

Unless it, erm, resembles your life.

CREDITS:
Cast: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
Director: Sharon Maguire
Producer: Jonathan Cavendish, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner