A One Mann’s Movies review of “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy” (2025).
Bridget Jones hits her “Final Chapter” (Hmmm, we’ll see!). And it really ticks all of the boxes for what a Bridget Jones sequel should be. In particular, it does a brilliant job at reuniting the full cast from the earlier movies.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Bridget Jones Fan Rating:
“Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy” Plot Summary:
Darcy (Colin Firth) is dead and has been for four years now. The grieving Bridget (Renée Zellweger), now a mother of two, decides that it is time to move on with her life, return to work and hopefully find new love.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Strong language, sex references”. )
Talent:
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Mila Jankovic, Casper Knopf, Sally Phillips, James Rawlings, Shirley Henderson, Gemma Jones, Emma Thompson, Neil Pearson, Jim Broadbent, Joanna Scanlan, Celia Imrie, Nico Parker, Claire Skinner.
Directed by: Michael Morris.
Written by: Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer & Abi Morgan. (From the novel by Helen Fielding).
Running Time: 2h 4m.
“Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy” Summary:
Positives:
- Chock full of all the characters you know and love from the earlier Bridget Jones films.
- Surprisingly moving, handling as it does the themes of loss and grief.
- Smashes the six laugh test (although many are spoiled by the trailer).
Negatives:
- The whole Rockster ‘ghosting’ segment is a bit odd and unrealistic.
Review of “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy”:
Almost a guaranteed smash hit in the UK.
I saw this on Valentine’s Day evening in a pretty well packed-out screening. About 80% of the audience were women. Bridget Jones has such a strong brand following that the makers barely needed to put a trailer out for this one to assure success. And success they most definitely will get. (It will be interesting to see the box office numbers for Bridget vs Captain America for this weekend.)
And helping it along is that the film is really well done. It is quite extraordinary (hats off to the casting team) that they have been able to assemble so many of the past actors from the earlier films for ‘one last hurrah’. (We will see… in a recent interview I saw Renée Zellweger say that she was well up for a Bridget Jones 5 if Helen Fielding came up with the materials.) It is particularly joyous to see Bridget’s old gang of reprobates – Shazzer (Sally Phillips), Hugo (James Rawlings) and Jude (Shirley Handerson) – back around the drinking table again.
Some of the characters have little more than cameos: Bridget’s Dad (Jim Broadbent) in a lovely and touching flashback scene; Joanna Scanlan reprising her role as the Make-up lady from “Bridget Jones Baby“; Claire Skinner as the original Magda (from “Bridget Jones Diary” – she was replaced by Jessica Hynes in Bridget Jones 2 and 3); Emma Thompson as the gynecologist from “Bridget Jones Baby“; Gemma Jones as her Mum and Celia Imrie as her friend Una (blink and you’ll miss her!); and Neil Pearson as her TV producer boss. (There is also a stressed out Mum, Rebecca (Isla Fisher), a few doors down from the Jones place: I’m not sure if she is supposed to be the same Rebecca (Rebecca Gillies) who was Darcy’s lesbian colleague from the original films?)
New blood
New to the franchise are two potential new love interests: a dishy teacher, Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and a ‘garbage management expert’ Rockster (Leo Woodall) 25 years Bridget’s junior (shades of “Babygirl” there but without the bad taste of infidelity and deception). Both give really good performances. Woodall’s recreation of Colin Firth’s white-shirt diving into a pool is particularly funny.
Playing Bridget’s children are 8 year old Mila Jankovic as Mabel and 13 year-old Casper Knopf as Billy (or “miniture Darcy” as Daniel Cleaver is want to call him!). Both young actors do a knock-out job. Jankovic in particular, an alumnus of Razzamataz Theatre Schools in Hackney, is an absolute poppet and lights up every scene she’s in.
Hugh Grant again steals the show.
It’s getting boring now waxing lyrical about how good Hugh Grant is getting at this stage in his career. He finished 2024 with a high, featuring a brilliantly charismatic role in “Heretic” (for which I was delighted to see him being nominated for a BAFTA) and with a sneaky cameo in “Paddington in Peru“. Here he returns to the role as the lascivious Daniel Cleaver that he is perfectly cast for. Back from the dead, he is still bonking women half his age and Grant is having a whale of a time with his twinkly brilliance.
A film just full of emotion.
I knew, long before seeing the trailer, that Helen Fielding had done the dirty and killed off Darcy (Colin Firth) from the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man’s sobs as she read the book. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the level of emotion that the film would mine from this. I was surrounded by sniffing and sobbing women in the cinema (including the IMMM sitting next to me). And, I must admit, at the end of an emotional carol concert rendition and a round of applause, my own eyes leaked just a little bit. It’s surprisingly well done.
Lots of laughs.
Although having some elements of drama, Bridget Jones is first and foremost a comedy. And in that regard, the film delivers well on the laughs. In general, the audience I saw this with was divided into two segments: those who had seen the trailer and those who had not. Because the trailer, sadly, gave away far too many of the best lines. (Once again, I believe there really ought to be just 1-minute teasers produced for films like this that ‘sell themselves’.) When the best lines of the trailer came up, there were guffaws of laughter from the minority of the audience who had managed to miss the trailer and polite titters from the rest of us. But the best laughs came from those lines and visual gags not shown in the trailer.
Joyeux Noel
By the way, there is so much Christmas and New Year content inserted into the film that I think this really should count as a “Christmas film”. I wonder, if the pre-Christmas agenda hadn’t been so full of competition from the likes of “Wicked” and “Paddington in Peru“, whether the film might otherwise have been targetted for a pre-Christmas release?
Our sour note
The one aspect of the story that really didn’t work well for me was a story transition between the ‘Rockster segment’ and the ‘Wallaker segment’. Bridget gets ghosted by the youngster and when the explanation comes (I was expecting some serious accident/coma like storyline) it is so underwhelming and out-of-character that I went “Oh!”.
Monkeys?
There are monkeys in a fashion during the end titles. Images from the first three films are shown alongside the titles and these are later replaced from some of the best known video clips.
Summary Thoughts on “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy”
A worthy sequel that I found really entertaining and I know has delighted audiences. I was outside the cinema the other night (waiting to go into “September 5“) as the first night of Bridget Jones came out, and there was a real buzz from the audience. I can now see why. Recommended.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fPesnrpOuY. As with any comedy, the trailer has a tendency to give the film’s best lines away. Best avoided if possible.
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Its Mark Darcy !!! wtaf is ” D’Arcy”
Ha ha – oh yeah. Thanks. Will correct. D’Arcy is a traditional English name and would have probably been the original of the Darcy name before someone’s great great grandfather decided they couldn’t be arsed with the apostrophe!