Though not my cup of tea, the first three installments of the Bridget Jones series made for pleasantly unforced entertainment, probably because the British have developed a better understanding than Hollywood has of what’s charming about romantic comedies, namely a playfully cynical approach to the sentiments involved. This attitude is compromised by the newest installment’s descent into sentiment for sentiment’s sake. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who married our Bridget (Renee Zellweger) in the last movie, has died in the meantime, thus casting an undispellable pall over the proceedings, even when Hugh Grant, who himself returns from the dead as Darcy’s one-time rival for Bridget’s affections, does his insufferable but irresistible stupid cad thing to general hilarity in his brief scenes. Grant’s built-in cynicism is counteracted by the purport of his opening reintroduction, when his playboy character, Daniel Cleaver, breaks a date with a hot model so that he can babysit Bridget’s two young children, thus allowing her to enjoy a rare night out with her friends.

The dilemma posed by the movie is how Bridget can still act like the horny, frustrated, wise-cracking diarist everyone loves from Helen Fielding’s books when she’s a widowed mom with more “important” things to do, and the makers of this very careful franchise product seem to think they can have their cake and shag it, too. The movie’s through line is Bridget going back to work as a TV producer after a period of mourning and seeing her children grow to school age. Naturally, once the work angle is settled—she slides naturally back into her old bumblingly effective methods—love is next on the rebound menu, and the requisite meet-cute moment takes place in a London park when a hunky park attendant (Leo Woodall), who’s much younger than Bridget, rescues her and her two kids from a tree. The age gap is fodder for the bulk of the jokes in the middle part of the movie while Bridget’s guilt over whether she can afford a lively fling with this kid, who is definitely crazy about her, at the expense of any attention she should be directing toward her children. The title seems purposely ambiguous, since the “boy” could either refer to her son, Billy (Casper Knopf), who still misses his father terribly, and her new beau, who eventually “ghosts” her out of a sense of being inadequate to her needs. In the meantime, a more traditional rom-com relationship is forming between Bridget and one of Billy’s teachers, the flustered and over-serious Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who in principle objects to Bridget’s parenting decisions, thus causing much comic friction between them.

In addition to Grant, other familiar faces make return trips to the series—Emma Thompson, Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent—to guarantee that the sentimental hogwash has a foundation in a community, which is not necessarily a blessing. It’s always been difficult to accept Bridget’s lack of self-esteem when she’s surrounded by so many people who love her deeply, including the men she sleeps with. I don’t have half as many friends as Bridget does and you don’t see me bitching to my diary about how inadequate my social life is.

Opens April 11 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Universal Studios, Studiocanal and Miramax/Jay Maidment