Is the rom-com heroine a ‘misogynist position mannequin’ or ‘internal voice of a technology’?

Since Helen Fielding created hapless, middle-class Bridget within the mid-90s, she’s divided opinion. Because the fourth movie is launched, girls throughout totally different generations focus on her impression.

Fretful hedonist and constant proprietor of ungainly knickers, Bridget Jones first appeared in a Nineties newspaper column. 4 best-selling books and three record-breaking movies later, Helen Fielding’s creation can now be seen in a fourth big-screen journey and, because the figurehead of a seemingly unstoppable British franchise, is routinely in comparison with James Bond.

After all, hapless, middle-class Bridget would not race round saving the world from evildoers. She’s extra prone to be present in a London bar, swigging white wine along with her garrulous mates. Both that, or lusting after males, historically Hugh Grant’s Daniel Cleaver or Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy, although she hasn’t been totally detached to the remainder of the globe; in a bid to look subtle and conscience-stricken she as soon as practiced saying the phrase, “Is not it horrible about Chechnya?” (in authentic 2001 movie Bridget Jones’s Diary) and one other time, out of pure dangerous luck, wound up in a Thai jail (in 2004’s sequel Bridget Jones: The Fringe of Cause). As for youths, they weren’t actually on her to-do checklist till she by chance bought pregnant in her forties (in 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Child) and spent the subsequent few months questioning if Mark was the dad.

Some view the return of Bridget as dire information for feminism: Bridget-bashers despair of the character’s ditzy fixation on both invasively cheeky or preposterously chivalrous males, to not point out her obsessive calorie-counting. Final 12 months, following the announcement of the newest movie, Glamour journal ran an article saying, “Bridget Jones was poisonous – we do not want her again”, and dubbing her “a dreadful and misogynistic position mannequin”. Nonetheless, others have stated that the brand new movie – wherein Bridget will get a 29-year-old boyfriend – is an empowering deal with for girls. In The Guardian, Hollie Richardson wrote: “It’s joyous to see a fifty-something mom having fun with a whirlwind of romance and intercourse.”

You may’t focus on Bridget Jones with out not less than mentioning Jane Austen, whose romantic comedies Fielding each cannibalises and mocks. Suffice to say, in case you want your widows to be elegant and targeted totally on their youngsters, à la Mrs Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, then Mad Concerning the Boy just isn’t for you.

Now in her early fifties, Bridget (Renée Zellweger; by no means higher) continues to be grieving for her beloved Mark (killed by a landmine in Sudan, although nonetheless current as a stunning ghost) and citing the couple’s two youngsters, with the odd little bit of assist from her depraved ex, Daniel (Grant; saucy, however refined). Inspired by her pals to get out extra, our heroine goes again to working as a TV producer, joins Tinder, and shortly finds herself having numerous wonderful intercourse with a younger parks supervisor, Roxster (One Day’s Leo Woodall; disarming), in addition to flirting with a delicate science instructor, Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor; magnetically wry). When issues get difficult, Bridget seeks solace in a dodgy serum that is designed to make her lips seem youthfully plump, which ends up in some actually superb screwball comedy and a stand-out intervention from a bemused gynaecologist, Dr Rawlings (Emma Thompson; crushing it).

For movie critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Mad Concerning the Boy – in addition to marking a rousing return to kind for Working Title, the manufacturing firm identified for quintessentially British romantic comedies like 4 Weddings and a Funeral – does its central character proud. “Bridget has at all times been the internal voice of a technology, saying what all of us suppose, however cannot admit, [with our anxieties] that we’re not handsome sufficient, that we’ll by no means win a Nobel Peace Prize,” she says. “I am undecided if she’s a feminist icon. She aspires to be one, although, and Mad Concerning the Boy affords this all-round portrait of what it means to be a girl. I beloved the primary movie, however the character has actually developed.”

What did Ivan-Zadeh significantly relish concerning the new movie? “That Zellweger/Bridget is allowed to look wrinkly. Am I allowed to say that? Let’s simply say different actresses, within the age bracket of late-40s to 50s, are both blessed [with] carrying plenty of make-up, have been expensively shot or had work executed. And the impact is that they appear extremely smoothed out. Within the posters, sure, Bridget seems to be smoothed out. However within the movie, she seems to be regular. We’re not being supplied Hollywood perfection. It is fantastic and uncommon to see a high-profile actress trying like this. It is courageous of Renée – it is also courageous of her folks! – to permit her to be seen like this.”

In response to Ivan-Zadeh, such bravery “says a lot about the place we are actually. Name it the Pamela Anderson impact,” she says, referring to the previous Baywatch star, who has reinvented herself lately each in actual life, along with her “make-up free” look on the purple carpet, and on display screen, along with her equally bare-faced efficiency, as 57-year previous entertainer Shelly Gardner, in The Final Showgirl. “It is like middle-aged girls are actually considering, ‘Oh, I am allowed to do this!’,” Ivan-Zadeh continues. “Zellweger and Anderson are in fact beautiful, lovely girls. However in The Final Showgirl and Mad concerning the Boy, they don’t look flawless or pixel-perfect.” 

For Ivan-Zadeh, Mad Concerning the Boy’s script works as a result of Bridget is rarely placed on a pedestal: “I really like the bit the place youngsters on the varsity run mistake her for a granny,” she says. Elsewhere, it is what’s not stated, alongside the casting decisions, that gives a stunning jolt. “One thing all of us do is ‘age maths’. I most likely should not admit that, however within the confessional spirit of Bridget Jones, I’ll. You sit there and obsessively calculate the relative ages of the romantic leads. Clearly, there is a massive hole between Woodall and Zellweger. There’s additionally a little bit of a spot between Ejiofor [47] and Zellweger [55], but within the scenes between Bridget and Mr Wallaker the age hole is not a difficulty. It is actually by no means dwelt on. You simply sit there and revel in it, understanding that traditionally it was very totally different. It was utterly the norm for a feminine romantic result in be ten and even 20 years youthful than her co-star. It is pleasing to see that imbalance redressed,” says Ivan-Zadeh.

In response to journalist Lizzie Frainier, Bridget Jones has at all times “damaged taboos”. Frainier, who has simply written a e-book about her personal love life known as Most important Character: Classes from a Actual-life Romcom, thinks Mad Concerning the Boy’s age-gap romance could not be extra well timed. She says, “I am 31 and, a couple of months in the past, I went out with somebody who was 29. Small age hole, no? He introduced it up ten instances! He stated I used to be the oldest girl he’d ever slept with and known as me a Cougar. There’s a lot prejudice on the market.” She provides, “I’ve beloved Bridget since I discovered the e-book, Bridget Jones’s Diary, on my mom’s bookshelf, once I was 13. I will by no means outgrow this character. Clearly she’s at all times going to be older than me, however I consider her as paving the best way.”

Thirty-year-old Olivia Petter, a podcaster and author whose e-book, Millennial Love, explores the fashionable courting scene, agrees that Bridget has a large fan base amongst thirty-somethings. “Bridget is a heroine for girls my age,” she says. “Her scrappy breed of chaos is one many people can relate to.” She additionally believes Bridget has “feminist traits”. “She navigates work and motherhood on this new movie, and it is the previous that finally ends up saving her, which I discover inspiring.” 

Petter attracts a hyperlink between Bridget’s surging reputation and the continuing success of the Intercourse and The Metropolis TV sequel, And Simply Like That, season three of which is due later this 12 months. “Personally, I really like seeing these iconic feminine characters become older,” Petter says. “We have spent method too lengthy fetishising youth and sending the message {that a} girl’s worth, significantly sexual worth, is proscribed to her 20s and 30s.”

Victoria Smith, 50-year-old creator of Hags: The Demonisation of Center-Aged Ladies, is all for celebrating older icons, however sounds a word of warning. She was disheartened by a latest interview within the Guardian with Helen Fielding, wherein Fielding stated, “Bridget is not going to be anybody’s previous bat.” Smith exclaims, “Each technology of girls thinks ‘Proper, we’re not going to age like our mums did!’ However no technology of girls have been truly previous bats. All of them had internal lives and wishes. They only bought sidelined. So let’s not perpetuate that. Let’s not say, ‘You may solely have company and adventures in case you’re glamorous’.”

Smith was additionally irritated by the trailer for Mad Concerning the Boy, and its give attention to the buff our bodies of each Mr Wallaker and Roxster. She was particularly disturbed by the ogling of Woodall’s character by Bridget’s pals: “Is it equality to indicate older girls objectifying youthful males?” That stated, Smith admits “as a result of there’s a lot hostility in direction of girls of a sure age – you realize, all that Karen stuff – I am truly glad when any middle-aged girl is within the highlight. And I do really feel fairly a little bit of affection for the character of Bridget, who’s not less than allowed to air her insecurities. All of the give attention to physique positivity and physique neutrality could make girls really feel ashamed for having anxieties. After I’m the oldest particular person within the room, I really feel self-conscious. I have never had therapies, however increasingly more of my friends have. The reality is, it is actually laborious for girls to win. I am on Fb and also you get males speaking about Pamela Anderson, saying ‘I am unable to consider I used to fancy her’. So, sure, regardless of my doubts, I will go and see the brand new film.”

Twenty-nine-year-old author and feminist Moya Lothian-McLean, has been anti-Bridget since her teenagers (“I believe she’s garbage!”), and says nothing may convert her to the trigger. What she hates is that Bridget “is ineffective in each a part of her life”, she says – examples of her ineptness within the new movie vary from her setting a pan of pasta alight to getting caught up a tree. “They deal with her as a strolling punchline. Have not we bought extra concepts, in 2025? Are there not different tales about middle-aged girls that we are able to inform?” 

Although Bridget, in Mad Concerning the Boy, is proven to be a reliable TV producer, who is aware of her stuff concerning the setting and authorities coverage, Lothian-McLean continues to be unimpressed. She suppose that TV portrayals of working girls – for instance, the Sharon Horgan reveals Disaster and Motherland – provide insights which can be “a lot sharper, a lot extra satirical”.

Lothian-McLean finds it particularly infuriating when Bridget is known as an “everywoman”, declaring that Bridget lives within the prosperous North London enclave of Hampstead and that her youngsters go to non-public faculty. “Perhaps she’s an everywoman for individuals who stay in Hampstead. For that neighborhood, I suppose, she’s common. However not for the remainder of us.” But even Lothian-McLean says she’s “sure to see” Mad Concerning the Boy. “My pals are making worrying noises about utilizing our Cineworld move for it (we go each week).”

Are Gen Z women enthusiastic about Bridget? Ivan-Zadeh says that her eldest daughter (13), is determined to know extra about Mad Concerning the Boy (which, by the best way, is a certificates 15). “It is as a result of she’s on TikTok and he or she’s being informed it is value seeing.” Ivan-Zadeh believes youthful viewers will discover Bridget intriguing. “Bridget is not spiky, edgy, scary or misanthropic. She’s not within the Fleabag mould. And it is the correct time for that. If the film-makers had made Bridget extra like Fleabag it might be fairly courting. Bridget’s the sort of feminine icon we’ve not seen for some time. She’s not a caricature. Although clearly insecure and susceptible, she tries laborious to be caring and supportive. You perceive why the boys adore her. You perceive why her pals and kids adore her. She’s only a jolly good particular person. To younger folks, I believe, Mad Concerning the Boy will really feel fairly new.” 

Here is one thing Gen X, Y and Z can agree on: whether or not you like, detest or merely like Bridget, she’s turn out to be a must-see. 

Bridget Jones: Mad concerning the Boy is accessible to stream on Peacock within the US and is out now in cinemas internationally.