Renee Zellweger is back as Bridget Jones in Mad About The Boy, and the trailer for the new film hit this week.
The long awaited fourth film is titled Mad About The Boy, and is adapted from English author Helen Fielding’s 2013 novel of the same name, and will now be at the top of everyone’s Valentine’s Day festivities, I’m sure. As well as a returning Zellweger, the cast includes her former lover, Daniel Clever (Hugh Grant), who missed the third film, and is rounded out by Isla Fisher, Josette Simon, Nico Parker, and Leila Farzad. Michael Morris, known for his work on the television series, Better Call Saul and For All Mankind is in the director’s chair.
Like I said, the first trailer hit this week, check it out.
Now for a little bit of history for the uninitiated. Helen Fielding’s big knicker wearing, perennial singleton Bridget Jones came to life as a character in a series of columns from British newspaper, The Independent in 1995, titled Bridget Jones’s Diary, which did not carry any byline. And so, it was assumed to be an actual personal diary chronicling the life of Jones as a thirty something single woman in London as she tries to make sense of life, love, and relationships with the help of a surrogate “urban family” of friends in the 1990’s. Fielding would go onto publish the novelization of the column in 1996, followed by a sequel in 1999 titled The Edge of Reason. Of course it didn’t take too long before Hollywood came a knocking, and they were soon adapted into hugely successful films, with Renee Zellweger starring in 2001’s Bridget Jones’ Diary, 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason and 2016’s Bridget Jones’ Baby.
Finally, what should we expect from the new film….
(Warning: Spoilers from the trailer included)
Bridget Jones (Zellweger) is alone once again, widowed four years ago, when Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan. She’s now a single mother to 9-year-old Billy and 4-year-old Mabel, and seems to be stuck in an emotional state of limbo, raising her children with help from her loyal friends and yes, even her former lover, Daniel Clever (Grant). Pressured by her Urban Family, her work colleague Miranda (Sarah Solemani), her parents (Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent) and her gynecologist Dr. Rawlings (Emma Thompson), Bridget forges a new path toward life and love, she goes back to work and even tries out the dating apps, and is soon pursued by an enthusiastic younger man (Leo Woodall). Now juggling work and romance, Bridget grapples with the judgment from the perfect moms at school, worries about Billy as he struggles with the absence of his father, and it would appear, engages in a series of awkward interactions with her son’s rational-to-a-fault science teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
By all accounts, it looks to be really moving as well as funny. The film, again based on the ‘Bridget’ books is the last book in the series and is based on Fielding’s own experience of losing her husband and bringing up her kids alone. So packing a huge amount of heart, audiences should expect to cry and laugh multiple times within the movie’s runtime.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy will appear in select theaters and be released to Peacock on February 14, 2025.
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