Stars: Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Sally Phillips, James Callis, Shirley Henderson, Celia Imrie, Honor Blackman, Embeth Davidtz

Director: Sharon Maguire

Summary: Based on the novel by Helen Fielding. This is the story of a year in the life of Bridget Jones, a thirty-something woman, obsessed with her love life, weight, cigarette and alcohol intake. She falls for her boss, Daniel Cleaver, but when she discovers he is being less than faithful, her attention turns to the handsome Mark Darcy...

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Featuring a blowzy, winningly inept size-12 heroine, Bridget Jones's Diary is a fetching adaptation of Helen Fielding's runaway bestseller, grittier than Ally McBeal but sweeter than Sex and the City. The normally sylphlike Renée Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Me, Myself and Irene) wolfed pasta to gain poundage to play "singleton" Bridget, a London-based publicist who divides her free time between binge eating in front of the TV, downing Chardonnay with her friends, and updating the diary in which she records her negligible weight fluctuations and romantic misadventures of the year. Things start off badly at Christmas when her mother tries to set her up with seemingly standoffish lawyer Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), whom Bridget accidentally overhears dissing her. Instead she embarks on a disastrous liaison with her raffish boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant, infinitely more likeable when he's playing a baddie instead of his patented tongue-tied fops). Eventually, Bridget comes to wonder if she's let her pride prejudice her against the surprisingly attractive Mr. Darcy.

If the plot sounds familiar, that's because Fielding's novel was itself a retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic male lead is also named Mr. Darcy. An extra ironic poke in the ribs is added by the casting of Firth, who played Austen's haughty hero in the acclaimed BBC adaptation of Austen's novel. First-time director Sharon Maguire directs with confident comic zest, while Zellweger twinkles charmingly, fearlessly baring her cellulite and pulling off a spot-on English accent. Like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill (both of which were written by this film's coscreenwriter, Richard Curtis), Bridget Jones's stock-in-trade is a very English self-deprecating sense of humour, a mild suspicion of Americans (especially if they're thin and successful), and a subtly expressed analysis of thirtysomething fears about growing up and becoming a "smug married." The whole is, as Bridget would say, v. good. --Leslie Felperin

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Directors Commentary, Behind The Scenes Featurette, Music Video Killin Mind By Shelby Lynne, Music Video Out Of Reach By Gabrielle, Original Bridget Jones Diary Column Stills, Deleted Scenes
Year:	2001
Release Date:	December 20, 2004
Runtime:	93 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	823 241 0
Keywords:	Comedy, Bridget, General, Diary, Wide, Screen, Romantic, Jones's
Genre:	Comedy