Growing up in the 2000s, the Bridget Jones series were the ultimate comfort movies for me. To this day, I still laugh with my family and friends about the chilling scenes of Bridget climbing a fireman’s pole again on national television and the hilarious swinging fist fights in fountains between her love interests.
When I heard there was more Bridget on the way, I was initially excited… until I discovered which book by author Helen Fielding was made into a movie. And unfortunately, the film’s freshly released first trailer confirmed my fears once and for all.
Spoilers for Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy below
The fourth installment in the series brings back the recognizable, likable and clumsy Bridget Jones in all her glory, including Renée Zellweger in the lead role. However, her one true love, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), was murdered during a humanitarian mission in Sudan four years before this new film is set, according to Variety’s official synopsis.
The film’s first trailer confirms that our rom-com heroine is living life as a widow and mother of two young children, Billy and Mabel. We see Bridget imagine her late husband by her side and discuss how much she misses him with her daughter.
There will still be romance, of course – the footage shows Bridget re-entering the dating scene with a 29-year-old boy toy, played by Leo Woodall.
Don’t get me wrong, an exploration of a complex love life after the loss of your soulmate is a nuanced story to tell, especially when the father leaves behind a family… but that’s not what I want to see Bridget Jones do.
These movies are my virtual fuzzy blankets and cups of cocoa during the winter months. Many people dream of finding their own Mark Darcy, standing in the snow and accepting them for who they are – although perhaps we can all agree that for that part we wouldn’t just be dressed in our underpants like Bridget .
A complex love life after the loss of your soulmate is a nuanced story to tell… but that’s not what I want to see Bridget Jones for
While many parts of the original two films have not aged well—particularly the aspects of Bridget’s weight and her sexually intimidating “uncle”—the core love story has still held up to this day.
All three films in the franchise, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Bridget Jones’s Baby, have spent all their time building up the most solid romance between the pair, unraveling the lies of the dastardly Daniel Cleaver ( Hugh Grant) and the charms of Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) to achieve an endgame that so many of us dream of.
I feel extremely shallow saying this, but killing Mark feels like an insult to that perfectly crafted story. I fully accept that Fielding challenges our notions of what a happy ending looks like, and some may want to see how that unfolds – but right now I can’t get excited about a story that’s guaranteed to make me sad. Many readers of the series agreed, as this 2013 BBC piece shows.
It’s not all doom and gloom for the fourth Bridget Jones. Daniel Cleaver is back on the scene – he was absent from the third film as Hugh Grant had film conflicts due to Paddington 2 (and fair enough he was brilliant in it).
We’ll also see the return of her supportive and often destructive friends, Shazzer, Jude and Tom, her nosy mother and sassy father, and the outspoken Dr. Rawlings, played by the brilliant Emma Thompson. And of course Mark Darcy will still be in it – but I imagine this is mostly down to flashbacks and figments of Bridget’s active imagination.
If that meets all your requirements, then all power to you. Mad About the Boy will debut on US streaming platform Peacock on February 13, 2025, although it will not receive a cinematic release in the United States. However, international cinemagoers (including in the UK) can see the film on the big screen from February 14, Valentine’s Day.
As for me, I’ll be watching the first three films on repeat over the holidays, but it’ll take some convincing before I accept a Bridget Jones world without her Mark in it.
Related articles
