Bridget Jones' Diary is Amusing, But She's Hardly a Heroine

My first exposure to Bridget Jones' Diary occurred courtesy of the same professor who introduced me to Jane Austen. Curiously, when we watched the clip of that oh-so-British romantic comedy that found a bloated, bumbling Renee Zellweger sandwiched between suave charmer Hugh Grant and taciturn, bad-sweater-clad Colin Firth, it wasn't because of all the Austen echoes. It was because of exiled novelist Salman Rushdie, whose Midnight's Children we were reading at the time. Rushdie's auspicious appearance in the film involved him being asked not once but twice for directions to the bathroom and then being given a very clumsy nod by notoriously abhorrent public speaker Bridget (Zellweger) in the speech she makes introducing a hot new book.

By the time I saw more of the movie than that charming little scene, I'd watched a high school theatrical version of Pride and Prejudice, which caused me to notice the name of Colin Firth's character - Mr. Darcy - and wonder if this was a coincidence. Re-watching both this movie and the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice and doing a bit of poking around on imdb.com satisfied my curiosity on that score. It soon became apparent that not only is this Darcy's last name the same, he occupies the same role in the story, as an initially unlikable man whom Bridget, like laudable literary heroine Elizabeth Bennett, loathes and later loves. He also has a long, sordid history with Daniel Cleaver (Grant), a dreamy cad along the lines of Pride and Prejudice's George Wickham; the dispute in this case is over not paternal affection and inheritance but the fact that one of them stole the other's sweetheart, and the tide of the story changes when Bridget realizes the truth of who was wronged.

Other similarities include Bridget's relationship with her parents. While she and her father (Jim Broadbent) are close, her mother (Gemma Jones) is silly and nagging, forever trying to dictate how Bridget should live her life while remaining one of the forces standing in the way of her happiness. Moreover, not only did Firth play Mr. Darcy in the 1995 A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice, but screenwriter Andrew Davies worked on that screenplay while Jones and Grant both appeared in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility.

So when I watch Bridget Jones' Diary, I ought to be on Austen overload. Except that, hilarious as Austen's writing often is, there's a propriety to it that is sorely lacking in this film, which is loaded with crude jokes, foul language and lewd situations. While Wickham's infamous exploits mostly occurred off-screen, Daniel flaunts his roguish tendencies, and while we're sympathetic to Bridget, she doesn't come across so well either. She bears precious little resemblance to Elizabeth, who is strong-willed and well-composed, except when reduced to perplexity by her dealings with Darcy. Bridget is anxious, chain-smoking, self-absorbed and foul-mouthed. She suffers from the crippling lack a sense of self-worth, yet there always seems to be a sense of haughtiness about her. Her diary entries are so terse that they rarely reveal anything profound, and I find her insistence on omitting both articles and the personal pronoun that should usually serve as the subject of her sentences extremely annoying (though the distinct style led to a rather amusing - if equally ribald - series of "Very Secret Diaries" of various Lord of the Rings characters by LiveJournal blogger cassieclare).

Part of my general dislike of Bridget may also be due to a general dislike of Zellweger. I loved her in Cold Mountain, but elsewhere I've always found her characters, and the fact that she always seems to be squinting when she talks, irritating. No complaints about Firth, but seeing Grant as such a scallywag was rather jarring, since I'm used to seeing him in roles in which he displays varying degrees of nice guyness. Sure, he's still a handsome chap, and his charm is turned up as high as ever, so I couldn't help liking him a bit, but I felt rather guilty about it. Jones was entertaining as Bridget's libidinous, meddling mother, while Broadbent made for a tender father figure and forgiving husband. Effective while on-screen but rather forgettable overall were Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips and James Callis as Bridget's buddies Jude, Shazza and Tom.

Bridget Jones' Diary has many genuinely funny moments, though you probably have to be English or an Anglophile to appreciate a lot of the humor. The romance is fairly engaging and could even be heartwarming if only Bridget were a little more likable. I did enjoy the film, the first, second and, yes, third time I watched it. (It's on TBS a lot. Which spared me the full force of its very R-rated language.) But given the choice between Elizabeth Bennett and Bridget Jones, Elizabeth wins hands-down.