Kavanagh Cinema

Bridget Jones has sadly made her final appearance as a fan-favorite rom-com lead.

As much as I wish I could possess the sophisticated and refined qualities of Andie Anderson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, I will forever be a Bridget Jones girl.

It’s an inescapable fact that I always find a way to humiliate myself in public, whether through my deplorable public speaking skills or my tendency to say whatever comes to mind without filtering my own thoughts. I swear so often that the words have lost meaning, and my makeupless face and incompatible style of clothes parallel the disheveled ideas trying not to drown in my head. My cooking skills are subpar, and I also find myself blaring my favorite songs when the rest of my life is in flames around me. 

As soon as I heard that the newest film of the franchise, Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy, was being released, I was wary about watching it, as I was aware of the early bombshell being dropped. However, my deep-seated love for the quirky character overshadowed all the reservations I had. 

Now in her 50s, Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) graces the big screen again with her endearing eccentricity. Attempting to flourish as a single mother—following the tragic death of her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)—and a successful television producer while also rediscovering her romantic life proves even harder than she remembered. After becoming involved with Roxter (Leo Woodall), a man over 20 years her junior, she can’t seem to hide her fondness for her son, Billy’s (Casper Knopf) teacher, Mr. Walliker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and eventually enlists the help of her friends, family, and past partners to weave her way through a midlife crisis.

Admittedly, this final film of the franchise has quite a different tone: it’s bittersweet, but in the best way possible, and it even exceeded the low expectations I had. It was quite nerve-wracking to jump back into a series I hold so close to my heart after almost a ten-year hiatus, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to live up to the high standards set by the former movies. That being said, I couldn’t have walked away any happier.

I may have a biased standpoint since the previous three films—Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and Bridget Jones’s Baby—are some of my favorite pieces of art to ever be presented in Hollywood, but that isn’t relevant.

My hesitation mainly stemmed from a selfish perspective. Early on, we learn that Mark passed away after three movies of being Bridget’s partner on and off, and I couldn’t possibly imagine her with another man. The beginning of the series must be seen if anyone’s attempting to understand my profound affection for this fictional character. In every film, the fundamental dynamic is of Bridget working out her thoughts for whatever love triangle she’s in. 

The first two films she spent pining over Mark and her boss, Daniel (Hugh Grant), a horribly egotistical playboy. Though Daniel redeemed himself a bit in the fourth film with his devotion towards Bridget and her family, Mark was, and will always be, the clear choice. Though the question for avid filmgoers has always been “Team Edward or Team Jacob?” asking about Team Mark or Team Daniel will tell me a lot more about someone’s personality, as there’s a blatantly obvious answer. 

Even without seeing the rest of the series, this particular film could possibly be watched as a stand-alone, but my experience wouldn’t have been nearly as spectacular without having the background information to notice the parallels between the first movie, which were arguably my favorite part. 

Mostly, towards the end of the film, every little detail comes full circle in a wonderfully subtle way, mostly returning to the memory of Mark: Billy sings “I’d Do Anything” from the musical Oliver!, the song his dad would sing to him at bedtime as a kid; Walliker tells Bridget’s mother that she’s “perfect just the way she is,” an artful nod to Mark’s motto throughout the series; the very last camera shot shows Billy wearing the same green sweater decorated with a seasonal reindeer that Mark wore when he first met Bridget. And, of course, there’s the iconic recurring scene of Bridget running in the snow to confess her love for someone. 

I’m not at all ashamed to admit that after noticing each of these features I proceeded to pause the movie for a five-minute break to pull myself together. 

My last straw, however, was my epiphany about the symbolism of a certain snow-white owl that always seemed to watch over the house. In the final scene, the whole family is watching the bird from the window, and just after it turns its head to acknowledge Bridget’s new love interest, it flies away with the notion that the Darcy family is finally happy once again. 

Everything in this film, it seemed, awakened memories of Mark. And, through my previously expressed fondness towards the character, the finer figurative points left me with happily conflicted, a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. 

As much as I tried not to let my emotions get the best of me, I both had to pause the television because I couldn’t hear the dialogue over my laughter—something I’ve done quite frequently when watching the series—and because I couldn’t see through the grief that welled up inside of me, which was a new feeling.

While I was initially cautious about viewing the final film in the Bridget Jones franchise, it exceeded any expectations I had: just like Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy, and the rest of the movies haven’t just set a goal for rom-coms and their leading personalities, they are the goal that any other piece of work in the genre attempts to live up to.