The madcap Londoner returns in a third sequel that is just as deliciously satisfying as the first movie in the series — maybe even more.
Even though Bridget Jones fans are used to zany plot developments, few could have anticipated the twist in the new installment of her film series: Miraculously, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” reconnects with the deft balance of bubbliness, high jinks and emotion that was the hallmark of the movie that started it all in 2001, “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
That is a surprise, indeed, because of the first two sequels’ diminishing returns. The previous entry in the franchise, “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” may have ended with our heroine (Renée Zellweger) as the beaming new bride of her soul mate, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), but the franchise itself was in dire straits. Labored and unfunny, that film, from 2016, sounded like a cinematic death rattle rather than peals of joyous wedding bells.
Michael Morris’s “Mad About the Boy” opens with Bridget a widow of four years — happiness is always fleeting, a bittersweet undercurrent that anchors those generally buoyant movies.
She is as messy and disheveled as ever, the kind of mom who sets pasta on fire and lets her young children (Mila Jankovic and Casper Knopf) run the house. Fortunately, she still has the same supporting friends (James Callis, Shirley Henderson and Sally Phillips). She also continues to hang out with the suave playboy Daniel Cleaver, portrayed, as always, by Hugh Grant — how the Bridget Jones movies have, over the years, handled this now unpalatable type qualifies as magic of the highest order. And blessedly, Emma Thompson pops back as Bridget’s gynecologist, pronouncing “syphilis” in a way that deserves to start a thousand TikTok memes.
Still, it’s time for Bridget to move on and make the most of her 50s. In short order, she falls into the toned arms of the 29-year-old Roxster McDuff (Leo Woodall, “The White Lotus”), who rescues her from an ill-fated attempt to climb a tree — one of many instances of slapstick in the movie, a wise decision considering Zellweger’s expert physical comedy.
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Source: Movies - nytimes.com
