Like most people who watch her, I love Bridget Jones. I fear, at times, that I am her. And the fact that I am a heavy-set man slumping towards middle age who has as much desire to be a professional in London as I do to stick H๏τ pins down my finger nails should speak to the eternal genius of the movie. Yes, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason was a bit of a mess, actually, but before the series took a wayward turn into too much slapstick, the original, Bridget Jones’s Diary, remains a gem of British comedy.

With the fourth adventure (or misadventure) in Bridget’s steady march through the major milestones of life now here, and exploring loss and moving on, it seems appropriate to return to where it all began. Almost a quarter of a century ago, Renée Zellweger joined the ranks of unexpected (perhaps even controversially) cast actors who didn’t quite seem to fit the bill. She was, and is, after all, an American: something so painfully at odds with Jones’ whole ethos that some people simply didn’t see it.

But Zellweger immediately claimed the character for herself, transforming her look (a weird notion, since she just sort of made herself look normal), and adopting a very convincing English accent that ended up only being a small part of why her performance is so good. And without wanting to make a stand, here, I think we need to be a bit kinder to Bridget Jones.

Bridget Jones’s Diary Is A Thoroughly Convincing Look At The Silly Magic Of Romance

Clichés Aren’t Always A Bad Thing

Rewatching Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2025, you could read Mark Darcy’s intoxicatingly perfect “I like you very much, just as you are” as a veiled insult to her perceived physical imperfections, but I think that’s a disingenuous misreading. Because Bridget, inconceivable insecurities and all, is just a f*ck up, and her tumbling fear of rejection is rooted a lot more in the fact that she’s a little bit too much like Mr Bean, than what she registers on the scales.

Even with the ringing warnings about Bridget Jones’s Diary clattering loud in the background somewhere, when he says that, and when he fights Grant’s Daniel Cleaver for her honor, I’m afraid I still get a bit giddy. Because Bridget is a romantic too, and it isn’t a crime to fantasize that sort of happiness for her. Bridget is a bit of an injured baby bird, and while far cleverer people than me might say her journey is rote, or clichéd, or dangerous, I still find it curiously… warming.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is funny, and heartfelt, and a little bit sad at times, but it’s very endearing and very uplifting by its end, and for all its quirks, that makes it delightfully rewarding as a comfort rewatch.

Renée Zellweger’s Performance Is Very Endearing (And So Is Everyone Else)

The Controversial Casting Of An American Paid Off

Hugh Grant is delightful as the prototype sh*tbag that he would later adopt for further villainous roles. He comes across as a mᴀssive Sєxist, and a thoroughly reprehensible danger, but that isn’t exactly a gotcha, given it’s exactly how he’s supposed to be presented. Grant’s floppy-haired malevolence is a wonderfully convincing touch, and when he gets his comeuppance (not from Mark Darcy’s weak-wristed punches, but from Bridget’s humiliating rejection of him), it’s a hell of a moment.

Colin Firth captures Mark Darcy’s blend of pompous and heartfelt in the way only the man who played the most memorable version of the other Mr Darcy could have managed. He’s a bit of an enigma throughout, and Firth does very well to remain stoical, right up until you get the faintest sense of his own brand of mischief.

Elsewhere, Jim Broadbent is a perfectly observed portrait of a defeated aging man who just wants an easy life, and his wife (Gemma Jones) is a matriarchal tyrant who manages to just stay funny enough. Everyone plays a – mostly – gentle caricature of Britishness: down to the outrageous gay best friend, the girlfriends who doll out support and mockery in equal measure, the toxic coworkers, the overbearing but well-meaning mother… They’re good because they’re recognizable versions of people most people know.

Is Bridget Jones’s Diary Toxic? Probably A Bit, But Does That Ruin It?

Discourse Has A Way Of Distracting

Like Love, Actually, Bridget Jones’s Diary has faced cultural reconsideration since its release thanks to the focus on Bridget’s weight. Writer Richard Curtis has gone as far as to apologize for the fat-shaming (as well as a lack of diversity in his cast), and times have moved on. On reflection, and as someone who read Helen Fielding’s original books, I would suggest it’s impossible to separate the film’s lurid focus on her physical appearance from Bridget’s own obsessive, completely misplaced ᴀssessments of her weight. But at the same time, the film doesn’t really pause to look into why she’s like that.

I’ll mostly leave the discourse to the hundreds of articles strewn across the Internet proclaiming not only the movie toxic, but – perhaps a little too harshly – Bridget herself. This is a movie review, not a context review. And in the movie, Renée Zellweger’s character is a victim of herself first and foremost, and does not come across as a flagbearer for any cause other than hopeless, disheveled romantics.

I actually find the film a somewhat quaint take-down of diet culture, workplace misogyny, single-bashing, and all the things that have driven that discourse, but at the same time, recognize there is a far more dangerous side to the film’s choices (along with the books before it) that doesn’t belong to me. The idea that a romantic endgame being all-encompᴀssing is somehow uniquely characteristic of Bridget Jones’s Diary, however, ignores basically a hundred years of romance story-telling. So let’s not conflate the two.

Final Thoughts On Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones’s Diary is one of the most beloved British comedies of all time, but popularity doesn’t always dictate quality. It’s not a particularly challenging film, but it has its roots in golden age romance, with an edge of cynicism, and half an eye on Jane Austen’s works, and it all works very well. It still makes me laugh, Hugh Grant’s performance still feels deliriously naughty (as all of his villainous turns do).

Yes, there are yikes moments, like Bridget saying her 9 stone weight is indication of a “terrifying slide into obesity,” but there are curiously few mentions of her weight that aren’t very consciously presented as points of her own neurosis. And yes, her moment of epiphany coming because a man gives validation to the image of her that she is tragically incapable of seeing, but it’s not because she followed any of the golden rules she supposes would ensnare her the perfect man and avoid a life of dying alone, eaten by Alsatians. She did the opposite, and her loved her, just as she was.