Move-A-Day #235 - Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)

thirty-two

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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

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00003CXT7/103-0038564-0724625?v=glance

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The Bridget Jones movies (both 1 and 2) are hands down my favorite romantic comedies. I think a lot of women can relate to Bridget - me especially. I know the movies were about the book - but I just love the movies!

Colin Firth as Mark Darcy was absoutely brilliant. Same with Hugh Grant. Although I am not a huge Renee fan, I think she does a splendid job playing Bridget Jones.

Anyway, go check this movie out!
 
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Mike Olbinski

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Kate,

I heard the second one was horrible...my wife and I both loved the first one, but she hated the second one...

Surprised you liked it so much.

Mike
 

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Chandler Mike said:
Kate,

I heard the second one was horrible...my wife and I both loved the first one, but she hated the second one...

Surprised you liked it so much.

Mike

First one...excellent. Second one...the franchise became WAY too creatively masturbatory, going 'look look, we're funny!', and it failed so miserably that I wouldn't watch the second one again with a gun to my head.
 
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thirty-two

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Stout said:
First one...excellent. Second one...the franchise became WAY too creatively masturbatory, going 'look look, we're funny!', and it failed so miserably that I wouldn't watch the second one again with a gun to my head.

LOL

that's why i picked the 1st one, instead of the 2nd. although i do adore both.. the 1st one started it all *sigh*
 

Ryanwb

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I like this movie :|

I also think Renee Zellwiger looks better "plump" than ultra skinny like she is now. WTF is she thinking?
 

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Ryanwb said:
I like this movie :|

I also think Renee Zellwiger looks better "plump" than ultra skinny like she is now. WTF is she thinking?

Ding ding ding!!! You are the winner, Ryan. Tell him what he's won, Bob. A year's free subscription to the He-Man Twiggy-Haters Club!!!
 

joeshmo

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Stout said:
A year's free subscription to the He-Man Twiggy-Haters Club!!!

What do I have to do to join that club. :thumbup:
 
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