Evening Standard
(by Luke Leitch, Aug 27, 2004)

Bridget is back, bigger . . . . and even better

It is the most anticipated film of the year. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason comes to cinema screens in November. But just how good is it?

The wine, the shagging, the fags, the men and those bloody friends Shazza, Tom and Jude with their kamikaze advice on romance.

Bridget Jones is back. And the first thing that hits you is that she’s bigger, a whole lot bigger than before.

If nothing else, Renée Zellweger deserves an Oscar for her dedication to carbohydrates. Thanks to pasta, pizza and perhaps even pints, those Hollywood angles we saw in Chicago have been softened into some serious London layers.

That plumpness is something for us well-padded Brits to celebrate, and when this Everywoman declares, “I will always be just a little bit fat”, the audience almost cheers to support.

As anyone who has read the book knows, The Edge Of Reason has a simple enough plot: girl (Bridget) loves boy (Mark Darcy); girl has crisis of confidence and dumps boy; handsome amoral sleazebag (Daniel Cleaver) moves in for the kill; but girl—eventually, and after much mishap—realises she has thrown away her one true love.

And then comes an ending so happy the screening room lets out a collective swoon, after 104 minutes of pretty much permanent laughter. Do not doubt that this is this winter’s date movie par excellence.

According to the hype, this sequel to Bridget Jones’s Diary was not supposed to be much cop. The hype was wrong. It’s a lot better than the original and a hundred times better than that horrendously over-hyped confection Love Actually.

As well as her weight-gain, Renée Zellweger proves herself a trouper by a series of spectacular farcical set pieces. The fineste moment comes when—still working as a TV journalist for the terrible show Sit Up Britain—she is forced by her heartless hack boss (Neil Pearson) to skydive in a putrid orange, yellow and purple jumpsuit.

After opening her parachute she floats away, musing on her beloved Mr Darcy—and her landing gives viewers a close-up view of her enormous rear.

“The question”, Bridget asks herself as she grows increasingly insecure about her relationship with Darcy, “Is once you’ve found true love, how do you make it last forever?”

She has only been with Darcy for six weeks, four days and seven hours, or, according to Bridget Mean Time, 71 shags, before she starts to worry about the answer.

As Darcy, Colin Firth is perfect as the too-perfect gentleman—and difficult for Bridget to love. Supremely tolerant, supremely repressed and not a little stuck-up, he is the perfect upper-class Tory foil to Bridget’s barely repressed middle-class libertine.

She ends up dumping him not just because she suspects he might be having an affair (of course it’s not) but because he folds his underpants. She thinks this could be because he went to Eton, “a fascist institution where they stick a poker up your arse that you’re not allowed to remove for the rest of your life”.

In steps her old boss and Darcy’s old enemy Daniel Cleaver, in what is perhaps Hugh Grant’s finest performance to date. When the two men eventually clash over Bridget’s honour, the film is at its funniest.

Grant has built his career on playing two roles: the hapless twit and the heartless cad. Both come so naturally one often wonders if he is acting at all.

In his reprise of the despicable Cleaver, a combination of his two standards, Grant excels himself. His ravaged, just-gay-enough bastard in aviators is, realises Shazza, a “dysfunctional f****ed up middle-aged lost boy”.

And he steals the film. Cleaver is back in Bridget’s life because he now works for Sit Up Britain, presenting a culture guide for people who cannot be bothered with culture. His take on Rome? “When in Rome, do as many Romans as you can.” And New York? “The City That Never Sleeps—with the same person more than two nights running.” Classy guy.

He even savages that master of savagery Jeremy Paxman, branding the Newsnight presenter a “tosser” in a brilliant cameo scene.

Jim Broadbent is teddy-bear sweet as Bridget’s dad, but the real discovery of The Edge Of Reason is Jacinda Barrett, the Australian-born actress who plays Darcy’s colleague Rebecca.

Bridget is madly jealous of Rebecca and harbours dark suspicions that this Amazonian vision plans a Darcy takeover bid. As we eventually learn, her intentions are entirely different.

Barrett has the kind of glowing beauty that we have seen in young British actress Keira Knightly; if anything she is even more stunning.

To detail Bridget’s adventures too much would ruin them for everyone. They are not, however, always easy watching.

In the depths of her despond, after dumping Darcy for frankly pathetic reasons, a sneaking suspicion dawns that perhaps all she really deserves is what she fears most: a life of lonely nights on the sofa with a tub of ice cream, and a spinster’s grave. But this is a romantic comedy, not real life.

As the credits come close to rolling and Bridget nears that happy ending, she gives up the fags at last. Then she makes another resolution: “Bridget Jones has cocked things up for the last time.”