Bridget Jones is 43, and finds herself single once again. With a great job and a slimmer build, though, she’s ready to get back out in the world. After meeting a wealthy American named Jack Qwint (Patrick Dempsey) and briefly reuniting with old flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), Bridget finds out that she’s pregnant…and she’s not sure which man is the father.
I’ll admit, even though I enjoy Bridget Jones’s Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and the passage of time made me wonder if we needed another sequel to the film. But in a climate that rarely offers romantic comedies anymore, having a smart, occasionally dirty romantic comedy like Bridget Jones’s Baby is just welcome.
Why does this work when the previous film didn’t? I don’t know if it can be pinpointed to any one thing, but the film went through a lengthy development process, and it appears that they only chose to go forward once they had the right material. In the process, they lost Hugh Grant, and while Patrick Dempsey isn’t a perfect replacement, he works with what the film wants to do. Jack’s not Darcy, but he offers plenty to Bridget that Darcy doesn’t. The film was also smart to bring back Diary‘s director, rather than outsourcing to someone else without a connection to the high point of the series.
But the thing that really makes it work is how it incorporates the passage of time into the story. I don’t know that I need to see Bridget at every point in her life, but seeing her pregnant offers plenty of new fodder for a story. Quite frankly, if the creative team behind this puts in a similar effort towards a fourth film, I wouldn’t complain one bit about another entry in this series.
Outtakes Atlanta 