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Bridget Jones's Diary

BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY
Cert. 15
Director: Sharon Maguire
Screenplay: Helen Fielding, Andrew Davis and Richard Curtis

What is life like for the post-feminist, single, 30-ish, middle-class English woman? Bridget Jones's diary tells all: the struggle with calories and alcohol intake, the feelings of inadequacy and, most of all, the need for a man, not just any man but one who will commit himself to her.

Sexually liberated, independent, educated, with good career prospects, what Bridget Jones dreams of is someone who will love her faithfully and genuinely for what she is, which is somewhat overweight and rather foolish.

The film is a soft-centred and glossy adaptation of Helen Fielding's very successful book. It shows London and the home counties as Americans might like to picture them, where all Christmases are white and there is hardly any traffic and everybody is very well-heeled and well spoken. The film is faithful to the book (if not in the intricacies of the plot and the development of characters) in the profanity of the language and the low moral tone. Fornication is the unquestioned norm and no one asks whether this could have any connection with the unhappiness of the central characters.

The echoes of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice are blatant, from the grotesque and embarrassing mother to the apparently cold and misunderstood hero, named, without any attempt at subtlety, Mr. Darcy. But sadly, Bridget Jones has neither Elizabeth Bennett's wit nor her modesty; she is a heroine for our times.

Humour disguises

The film is undeniably funny and the acting impressive. But like the other big box office successes from the pen of screenwriter Richard Curtis, 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' and 'Notting Hill', the charm and the humour are a cover to make sinful godlessness acceptable and disguise its banality and misery. At best, these films are entertaining fairy tales, at worst, they are a propagation of the secularist lies.

When Bridget declares to her friends that she is looking for something 'more extraordinary' (than a relationship with her handsome bounder of a boss, Daniel) she is still only seeking on the plane of human relationships, as if the answer to happiness is only and ultimately there. This is a generation which has never heard or has written off the gospel, which declares the surpassing and sacrificial love of God for sinners just as they are, and the extraordinary possibilities of a relationship with him.

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