Excellent film, extremely funny, as good as the book
Disadvantages:
None
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
For anyone who's never heard of Bridget Jones, where have you been for the past few years?!
Bridget Jones is a neurotic 30-something "singleton" - or in Bridget's words, a 'spinster'. She has to cope with "smug marrieds" asking why she's not married yet and her mum trying to fix her up with her friend's son, Mark.
The diary in the title follows Bridget's life over the space of a year. In the book (from which the film was adapted), each entry in the diary starts with a run down of her weight gain/loss, how many cigarettes she's smoked, how many units of alcohol she's consumed and the total number of calories for that day - you know, all the important things in life!
I was lucky enough to see the film on a freebie preview last night. I wondered how well it would transfer from book to big screen, but I shouldn't have worried as it was fab.
Renee Zellwegger (best known for Jerry Maguire and being the ex-girlfriend of Jim Carrey) takes the part of Bridget. She does an excellent job, although her English accent makes Bridget sound more upper class than I thought she was meant to be. I would have liked to have seen a British actress play the part - could imagine Kate Winslet would have been brilliant - but Renee did a more than adequate job.
The two men in Bridget's life - her boss Daniel Cleaver (played very well by Hugh Grant) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) - are complete opposites. Bridget thinks Daniel is a sex god, whereas Mark... well, let's just say she doesn't particularly like him at first, especially when she sees what he's wearing at her mum's New Year Turkey Curry Buffet!
The script is co-written by Helen Fielding (the author of Bridget Jones' Diary), Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and Funeral, Notting Hill) and Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice). Although it's a while since I read the book, it seemed to follow it very well - none of this adding extra bits malarkey, like you see in some adaptations. Obviously some of the book has been left out, as the film would have taken a lot longer than it did, but you certainly feel like you've got the whole story in watching the film.
Everyone in the cinema last night enjoyed the film - that much was obvious by the laughing out loud every few minutes. It has some hilarious moments in it - the scene at the 'Tarts and Vicars' garden party, the end scene where Bridget is running through the snow, the blue soup - but the funniest has to be the incident with the firemans pole on Bridget's first TV performance! I'll leave the rest to your imagination until you watch it! :-)
The film is about 90 minutes long - it could have been longer by adding additional bits of the book, but it works well that length and makes sure the audience isn't bored.
If you've read the book, the story comes flooding back to you as you watch the film. If you've not read it, you really ought to after you've seen the film - there's much more in the book that can't be put into the film that you didn't ought to miss.
If you do go and see it, make sure you stay for the credits at the end - there's a few other clips that you won't want to miss!
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