Academy Award(R) winner Renée Zellweger (Best Supporting Actress, COLD MOUNTAIN, 2003; CHICAGO) and Hugh Grant (LOVE ACTUALLY, TWO WEEKS NOTICE) star in a delightful comedy about the ups and downs of modern romance. Bridget (Zellweger), a busy career woman, decides to turn over a new page in her life by channeling her thoughts, opinions and insecurities into a journal that becomes a hilarious chronicle of her adventures. Soon she becomes the center of attention between a guy who's too good to be true (Grant) and another who's so wrong for her, he could be just right (Colin Firth -- LOVE ACTUALLY)! Based on the best-selling book, BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY is another acclaimed crowd-pleaser from the hit makers of FOUR WEDDING AND A FUNERAL and NOTTING HILL.
Featuring a blowzy, winningly inept size-12 heroine, Bridget Jones's Diary is a fetching adaptation of Helen Fielding's runaway bestseller, grittier than Ally McBeal but sweeter than Sex and the City. The normally sylphlike Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Me, Myself and Irene) wolfed pasta to gain poundage to play "singleton" Bridget, a London-based publicist who divides her free time between binge eating in front of the TV, downing Chardonnay with her friends, and updating the diary in which she records her negligible weight fluctuations and romantic misadventures of the year. Things start off badly at Christmas when her mother tries to set her up with seemingly standoffish lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), whom Bridget accidentally overhears dissing her. Instead she embarks on a disastrous liaison with her raffish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, infinitely more likeable when he's playing a baddie instead of his patented tongue-tied fops). Eventually, Bridget comes to wonder if she's let her pride prejudice her against the surprisingly attractive Mr. Darcy.

If the plot sounds familiar, that's because Fielding's novel was itself a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic male lead is also named Mr. Darcy. An extra ironic poke in the ribs is added by the casting of Firth, who played Austen's haughty hero in the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. First-time director Sharon Maguire directs with confident comic zest, while Zellweger twinkles charmingly, fearlessly baring her cellulite and pulling off a spot-on English accent. Like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill (both of which were written by this film's coscreenwriter, Richard Curtis), Bridget Jones's stock-in-trade is a very English self-deprecating sense of humor, a mild suspicion of Americans (especially if they're thin and successful), and a subtly expressed analysis of thirtysomething fears about growing up and becoming a "smug married." The whole is, as Bridget would say, v. good. --Leslie Felperin

Customer Rating:
Summary: A Bitter Sweet Movie
Comment: This movie was a bit comical, but also very touching and tear jerking too, since Bridget(Renee Zellwegger) and Daniel Cleaver(Hugh Grant) started out seeming like the perfect married couple who was hot and heavy and then all of the sudden POOF! Daniel decides to dump Bridget and steals Mark Darcy's wife(Lara)while Bridget discovers that Daniel ended up being unfaithful to her all of the sudden when Bridget walks into their bathroom and finds Daniel's mistress/Mark Darcy's wife(Lara)hiding in there naked, just before Daniel drops the bomb on Bridget and tells Bridget that he and Lara were even engaged to be married on top of that.

So then Bridget moves on by eventually dating the handsmome Mark Darcy(Colin Firth) after getting over a tragic divorce with Daniel, but then one night Daniel decides to drop by Bridget's apartment one night while Mark and Bridgets friends are having dinner to try to get Bridget back, since Daniel's mistress/Mark's ex-wife(Lara)ended up dumping him and breaking off their engagement resulting in Mark and Daniel duking it out in the street trying to win over Bridget while Mark also avenges Daniel for stealing his former wife(Lara)by beating the crap out of Daniel in the process after a hasty altercation, which unfortunately kinda left Bridget caught between a rock & a hard place even though Daniel ended up getting what he deserved.

The truth is, I kind of couldn't help feeling kind of sorry for Daniel at first right after the ugly clash he had with Mark, since Mark nearly beat Daniel to a pulp, which also resulted in Daniel getting a double whammy in the process on top of that, but at the same time, it was like Daniel got what he deserved, since he broke Bridgets heart, but Mark did nothing to hurt Bridget or Lara and was a much bigger and better more mature gentleman than Daniel was and seemed to be a more compatible boyfriend/lover for Bridget.

The end was also very touching and heartfelt when Mark drops by Bridget's apartment all of the sudden on short notice on New Years and turning down a job in New York to inform Bridget that he wants to reconcile with her and then ends up reading Bridget's diary by accident while sorting through her stuff while he's trying to find something and reads a nasty little paragraph about himself(Mark Darcy) while Bridget is freshening up to look sexy for Mark to do hubba hubba, but then Mark walks out of Bridgets apartment making us and Bridget think that Mark was leaving Bridget again after reading the nasty stuff Bridget wrote about Mark, but then it turns out that Mark wasn't going to be dumping her and that Mark just wanted to surprise her with a new diary to make a fresh start together as an item again and for Bridget to make herself a new diary starting a brand new life with Mark.

Therefore, it seemed like Bridget's diary lead to nothing, but trouble, injustice, and grief, kind of like how one innocent love letter lead to 6 sticky situations in the movie "SECRET ADMIRER".

So if you're looking for an interesting comedy drama, "Bridget Jones' Diary" is a good movie to watch and consider.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: for romantics
Comment: Recommended by the great book "Cinemotherapy for Lovers" in the "Finding Your Prince" chapter. British? About doing your own thing, and how that can lead to true love.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Silly fun
Comment: This movie has a special place in my heart, because I saw it screened at my college shortly after September 11th, 2001, when everyone was in serious need of some mental relief. This movie delivers, with hilarious situations and a sweetness that leaves you feeling pretty good at the end. Loosely based on Pride and Prejudice, the casting of Colin Firth as Mark Darcy is a tongue-in-cheek shout-out to fans of the original BBC production in which he excellently portrays the original Darcy. I have to admit, I had no opinion of Renee Zellweger before this movie, but loved her as Bridget. One nitpick - she was supposed to be chubby? Even with an extra 20 lbs, Renee looked normal, healthy, and cute. As is the usual case, the book is better, but the movie is great fun, and chock-full of "Hey, it's that British Guy"s.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Quirky heroine in modern age screwball comedy...
Comment: RENEE ZELLWEGER plays such a klutzy frump of a girl in this British screwball comedy that it's hard to imagine COLIN FIRTH and HUGH GRANT fighting over her. We're told that it's because she so "natural" that she has men buzzing around her. Well, that might be true if Miss Zellweger looked more like Carole Lombard. In fact, one could easily see this as a screwball comedy back in the '30s if Hollywood made the story starring Lombard, Cary Grant (not Colin Firth) and James Stewart (not Hugh Grant). Get my drift? Instead, Miss Zellweger looks more like pudgy Lynn Redgrave of "Georgy Girl," an overweight and rather awkward young woman given to wearing tight clothing and making the most inappropriate remarks at the most crucial moments. She speaks her mind without any regard for the consequences and lands into one troublesome social situation after another because of her quirky attitude.

An inside joke has COLIN FIRTH's character called Mr. Darcy--and indeed, he behaves as that gentleman did in "Pride and Prejudice," at first utterly rejecting Bridget Jones and then making a pass at her which she turns down, only to change her mind before the final reel.

HUGH GRANT has a thankless role as a witless cad but plays it with his usual charm, the sort of role James Stewart might have done had this been made back in Hollywood's Golden Age when screwball comedy was just as mad but a lot less risqué.

But Renee, Colin and Hugh are not Lombard, Grant or Stewart and the film suffers because none of them can make this kind of material seem like anything more than a manipulative romantic comedy about an awkward girl finding her Prince Charming in a Jane Austen kind of way--with all the modern sensibilities destroying most of the charm.

Unless you're a devoted fan of these stars, this one is pretty hard to recommend except as very lightweight entertainment in quirky British style, but Bridget's gaffes are too monumental to be accepted by Darcy.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: You'll never get a boyfriend if you look like you wandered out of Auschwitz.
Comment:
OK, I am an avid fan of Jane Austen, but Bridget Jones is NOTHING like Austen. Anyone with the slightest of ideas on the subject can see that.

Helen Fielding wrote both the novel and the screenplay to Bridget Jones's Diary and yes, it is loosely based on Pride and Prejudice. Can I repeat loosely!!! After seeing The BBC version of Pride and Prejudice Fielding based the male character of Mark Darcy on Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, because of course she was taken by him and Colin Firth's portrayal.(as so many of us also are) Other than some basic character traits they really are two completely different tales about different sets of people in drastically different times.

But with all Austen-isms aside, Bridget Jones(Renee Zellweger) is a strong, typical woman who is all too familiar to many of us. She finds answers to problems in vodka and Chaka Khan, has issues with her body and is after all the wrong men! There is something about Bridget all of us can identify with.

Yes, slightly more promiscuous perhaps, maybe a bit more of a gutter-mouth but she's a character none-the-less.

Bridget is full of spunk and won't let anything or anyone keep her down, and in that aspect she is a real inspiration.

Mark Darcy(Colin Firth) and Daniel Cleaver(Hugh Grant) are enjoyable in there opposite of the spectrum characters, both after the affection of Miss. Jones.

Set Austen aside, and try it for what it is.

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