Bridget Jones’s Diary: The Movie

            This movie can be dismissed as “froth” like the novel upon which it is based. Is careful analysis therefore precluded? The film is no masterpiece of the cinematic tradition. But it was as carefully edited for commercial success as a TV commercial or music video. Made for about $20 million. Recouped more than half on its first weekend.

            The following observations represent my own attempts (after several renewed sessions with the VCR) to register the care with which the froth has been whipped. Some highlights follow. [Several reprises–of B crossing London bridges, feet on staircase have, regrettably, been omitted; as, alas, has been the revelation of the truth about Darcy’s marriage]

            The film begins before the title and the names of the actors have been screened. There is an attempt to recreate visually the immediacy with which novel begins.

            “It all began on New Year’s Day on my 32^nd Year . . .” What began? “It.” There is, however, a greater narrative immediacy here than in the novel (which seems a mere jumble of discrete information). The “it” is B’s romance with D whom we shall soon see. The film ends with their first kiss. By then we know what it is. Voice over tries to recreate immediacy of the “I” in the book

            Tick tock. Tick tock. Note references to marriage/pregnancy (and presumably to the romance which precedes them) which are highlighted more than in the novel (which focuses rather upon B’s desire to be a successful “singleton.”

            [Tick tock in narrative theory; the Diary and “raw” time.]

            B’s father gives B bad vibes about D.

            D describes B as “a verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish and smokes like a chimney and dresses like her mother.” Does he say anything like this in the novel.

            B says “That was it. Right there. That was the moment.” Falling in love . . . ?

            Music and intro credits of lip-synching “All by Myself.” Use of movie soundtrack. How does this change the novel?

            Major decision. B decides to start a diary “to tell the truth, the whole truth, about Bridget Jones.” In the novel, she has already started the diary and is making decisions about other things.

            Face of C embodied as “fuckwit.” D and C are juxtaposed immediately in a dramatic way which is absent from the more free-wheeling novel. The movie “creates” a plot which emerges more indirectly from the novel.

            Face of C arriving at the office. We know that Hugh Grant usually plays “a nice guy.” Can we take his exploitative role in this movie as seriously as we take it in the novel? [Note very well-directed facial movements of all three leads? Is this really a film about men made for women? The novel was about how it feels to be a woman.]

            Office scenes. Why are there more of these in the film than in the novel (which details B’s inner rather than outer life)? Why do we have Fitzherbert/tits-pervert emphasized?

            Introduction of Perpetua. Is this how we imagined her in the book?

            Jude crying in toilet over “vile Richard.” Starts to introduce urban family.

            B pretends to be talking about F. R. Leavis, the famous English critic who wrote Mass Civilization and Minority Culture. He’s dead. So are his ideas. He viewed “culture” as high culture. This is a movie about pop/ mass culture (which is celebrated). Leavis hated movies.

            Urban Family. Tom has to be given a (sort of) career as running joke. Does this make him more realistic than in the novel? [There wasn’t room in the film for the novel’s sub-plot about his nose-job. These sub-plots rendered the novel more surrealistic.]

            Friends dump B on sidewalk. Notice how this anticipates their departure for Paris at the end of the movie.

            B imagines wedding scene with C where it began with her skirt. Does the movie sell out the novel by endorsing romance plot of happy ending=marriage? (Movie does not finally quite sell out, but why does B dream of love/marriage rather than upon being a successful singleton.)

            C: “New York Office. Tell them I’ll get back.” After seeing movie again, one realizes that he was talking to his fiancee and is therefore being a cad when he fondles B’s bottom in elevator: there is already another woman in his life.

            Importance of office party set up by urban family.

            B puts on panties. First appearance of cellulite in Hollywood-style romance movie? Zellweger put on 17 lb to get role. Is B “as fat as a puppy” at size 10? Focus on her body for rest of movie. But no nudie shots of Z: contrast, e.g., Demi Moore. Ratings problem, presumably . . . Raw language. No raw bodies. 

            Real-life cameos by novelists Salman Rushdie (who praised the novel) and Lord Archer underscore the knowing post-modernity of the film. What is real?

            D is at the party. Hears B’s speech. B is introduced to Natasha (bad “thin woman”) theme. N introduced much earlier. Plot is tighter than in novel. N tells Perpetua “Just give me time, give me time.” Marital golddigger. Contrast with B.

            B’s engagingly honest speech. D is attracted by her lack of phoniness rather than by her body (unlike C). B is not so much of a narcissistic whiner in the movie.

            C. “Just full sex.” Panties again (theme in both book and film.) “Hello Mummy.” Contrast sex with C; postponed kiss with D. Movie plays with B’s “virginity” (which was essential for old-style Austen heroines).

            Two day relationship between B and C. “What happens at the office?” B asks. C reveals that he likes “wanton sex . . . not exactly a long-term relationship.”

            B: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life is going right, another part goes spectacularly wrong.”

            Mother’s marriage woes. She is more sympathetic than in novel where she is still besotted with Julio at the end. [Julio becomes Julian: another surrealistic sub-plot has to be jettisoned.]

            B takes control of life. Seeks for new job. Contrast novel where mother’s role in getting her the job is emphasized. What difference does the change make?

            Drunken father on floor. Pathos in film is not in novel.

            Tarts and Vicars party/mini-break episodes of novel conflated to save time, tighten plot.

            B in car. Trying to look like Grace Kelly in To Catch A Thief (directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 1955). She fails.

            D and N at mini-break. Plot again focused and tightened (but is realism lost?) D and C as rivals with some kind of a past.

            Boat scene. B gives parodic misquotation of “Ode to Autumn” by Keats. C quotes raunchy limerick. C falls in water. Contempt expressed by thin N.

            “Daniel, do you love me?” asks B. Would she have asked this in novel? Wedding couple dance. Romance theme emphasized more in movie than in novel. C more interested in unmentionable sex acts.

            C has to go back to London. “The Americans are flying in to shut us down.” Ha ha. It is his fiancee. He cannot go with B to the Tarts and Vicars party

            B’s version of a tart is a bunny girl. I don’t get it.

            Julian at party. B’s father is taking her advice “to flirt.” Wrongly.

            B returns to London. Discovers C’s American girlfriend (long, leggy, Lara: another bad thin woman) who says, as in novel: “You told me she was thin.” Is novel funnier in B’s discovery of C’s infidelity?

            B walks home through market as bunny. Outside scenes in “real” London? [Scenes of bridges.] B watches Fatal Attraction on sofa. Documentary of animals humping.

            B, C, Lara at office. C’s insincere “I feel terrible . . . We’re engaged.” Is C really bad or is Hugh Grant pretending to be bad.

            B at home with vodka. Empty fridge. No food bingeing as in book.

            B takes control of life. Finds job (after 3 interviews). “No problem with shagging the boss here.”

            B humiliates C in front of office. Theme of 9 to 5. Also Working Girl (1988). How does B resemble Melanie Griffith? Thin Sigourney Weaver. Pop cultural knowledge saves heroine.

            Fire station scene. Screen fills with B’s backside. Fat? Recurrent? Reprise on video. “I have a bottom the size of Brazil.”

            Dinner of “smug marrieds.” Tick Tock: pregnancy theme heightened in film. D and Natasha at party. N sneers: “Not in your bunny girl outfit?” D gives divorce statistics. Film really intensifies B versus N, D versus C.

            D and C alone. D tells C “I really like you . . . Just as you are . . . What’s in your head comes out of your mouth.” Unlike N? Notice use of “like” rather than “love” (as B used with C).

            Notice: “Just as you are.” B doesn’t have to change. But the novel is about wanting to change (perhaps impossibly). B’s body type. N’s. Is D interested in mind rather than body? A woman’s dream?

            Tom: “This is someone you like.” Urban family and D (and C) interact far more in film than in novel. The sprawling structure and detail of the diary-format becomes lost, but the plot becomes tighter.

            High Court case. How D saves B’s job. (Can’t she save it herself?) Compare the novel and the film. “Love affair” and “human rights morality” of case emphasized in film (nasty tabloid stuff in novel). B and D virtually express love for each other on the TV screen: “Did you fancy him the first time you saw him.” Postmodern.

            B tries to cook birthday party for friends. [Different scenes of novel conflated cleverly.] D arrives. Tries to save meal. (Note again how D is always around: as not in novel.) Scenes of domestic togetherness. Jokes about gherkins.

            [B’s mother calls. Information about the sub-plot.]

            Friends arrive. Endure meal. Friends toast B: “To Bridget whom we love just as she is.” They have picked up what D told her and recycle it for D. [Note again how this contrasts with novel which is all about desired change.]

            Arrival of C with bottle because she might be on her own (which indicates his condescension). Talk on balcony. Lara has dumped him. C says “it’s not just a sex thing” with B.

            C says at D leaves: “Mark Wanker Darcy.” (Line is reprised to show C as dirty fighter.) “Outside Cleaver.” “Dueling pistols or sword.” Parody of romantic plot where men duel over a woman.

            “Fight! Fight!” (Is Tom obnoxious, as not in novel?] Parody of bar room brawl in western. Exaggerated action for satirical effect. With whom should urban family side? Unfaithful C or D who has (supposedly) cheated with C’s wife?

            B has to choose between D (whom she describes between “as bad as the rest of them”). D says “I see I have been laboring under a misapprehension.” Parody of silent, strong romantic hero.

            The best C can offer is “We belong together Jones. Little skirt. If I can’t make it with you, I can’t make it with anyone.” She replies “Not a good offer. Someone who’s never quite sure. I’m still looking for something.” This is the “love” word–quite different from novel.

            Christmas alone at home with father. Watching mother on TV. Mother arrives. Postmodern satire of delayed time on TV. Parents make up: romance ending to their problems. Contrast with mad mother in novel.

            Mother tells B truth about D’s marriage. Film reprise of feet on staircase.

            Parody of Hollywood ending as B drives car to D’s parents party. Note again how scenes in novel have been conflated.

            D’s palatial home. [Contrast house of B’s parents: they are well-off but not as rich as D’s.]

            N disses B. B apologizes to D over her misapprehensions of his marriage.

            B and D talk. “You said you liked me just as I am. I wanted to say likewise.”

            Formal speech by D’s father [D’s parents are much grander and classier than B’s]. D is going to NY . . . with Natasha. Orchestra strikes up “Here comes the bride.”

            B interrupts. Goofy, honest speech as at book-launch party. In movie B is consistently portrayed as more publicly honest, less emphasis upon her private dysfunction. B walks out

            D flies to NY. B concludes Diary, alone. Bridget Jones, Spinster. Note that she chooses this word, not singleton. Film reverses thrust of novel (or does it?).

            Urban family arrives to take B to Paris. Tom: “He should have leapt over his family heirlooms. Has he ever stuck his tongue down your throat?” Contrast with C! Set up for final kiss.

            Reenter D. “I came back.” Kiss postponed by urban family.

            D in flat. B tells him to read something while she goes off to search for “genuine tiny knickers.”

            D reads Diary. [Clever use of Diary motif. The spinster’s Diary is being read–it has not finished its work.] “Giant gherkin up his backside . . . DULL . . . No wonder his wife left him.”

            D leaves. B shouts out window. D disappears. Drama of B in snow in knickers and T shirt. Again she is genuine, somewhat bizarre (as in bunny-girl scenes, fire-house scenes). She is seen from the outside, not from the inside as in novel. Soundtrack swells. More exteriority.

            D comes out of store with Diary for the next year. B apologizes for what D has read. “I didn’t mean what I said. It’s only a diary. Full of crap.” Does this betray the novel? Is it a funny comment on novel . . . ?

            Final kiss. “Nice boys don’t kiss like that,” says B. “Oh yes, they fucking do,” D replies.

            Movie is clever. Very old-fashioned romance: There has been no sex between B and D. But now he has just used the F word. He has never used it before. C used it all the time. B is not a virgin, but she is with D. Movie manages to be conservative and postmodern at the same time. Very different effect from sex with D in novel. Which happens within the book. On screen it is postponed until after The End/ The Beginning.

            Rodgers and Hart show tune plays with credits. “Have you met Miss Jones?” Scenes of B and D at the paddling pool: she is goofy and boisterous as during the movie. “Now I’ve met Miss Jones.” Reprise of theme introduced at beginning of the novel: their childhood relationship. Photographs of B at 4 and M at 8 (do we know their ages in the novel? Does it matter?) Last visual image is of B’s face at 4 freeze-framed. Is this a good visual ending? [The home movies touch is very American; Brits would not have taken them.] How does it contrast with the novel? Critics say it gives the movie the touch of a sit-com with credits rolling: do you remember HBO’s Dream On with boy watching TV as a child and then as an adult.