Directed by Sharon Maguire
Writing credits: Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies and Helen Fielding
Novel by Helen Fielding

Ren?e Zellweger .... Bridget Jones
Colin Firth .... Mark Darcy
Hugh Grant .... Daniel Cleaver
Honor Blackman .... Penny Crispin
Bonham-Carter .... Greg
Jim Broadbent .... Colin Jones
James Callis .... Tom
Embeth Davidtz .... Natasha
Shirley Henderson .... Jude
Celia Imrie .... Una Alconbury
Gemma Jones .... Pam Jones
Sally Phillips .... Sharon "Shazzer"

Produced by Tim Bevan (producer), Jonathan Cavendish (producer), Eric Fellner (producer), Peter McAleese (line producer)
Cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh

Rated R for language and some strong sexuality.

STUDIO SYNOPSIS:
Based on Helen Fielding's international best-seller Bridget Jones's Diary, Golden Globe winner Renee Zellweger (Nurse Betty, Jerry Maguire) stars in the title role as the dynamic, irrepressible and outrageously original Bridget Jones.

At the start of the New Year, 32-year-old Bridget decides it's time to take control of her life?and start keeping a diary. Now, the most provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she's writing. With a taste for adventure, and an opinion on every subject?from exercise to men to food to sex and everything in between?she's turning the page on a whole new life.

PROFOUND SADNESS
Loneliness can be a frightful thing. Even highly popular Albert Einstein once remarked, "It is strange to be known so universally and yet be so lonely." And John Milton once said, "Loneliness is the first thing that God?s eye nam?d not good.

LOOKING TO FILL THE VOID
So what does Bridget do to eliminate her loneliness? Men! She seeks out men. But, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was right on when in stating "If you are afraid of loneliness, don?t marry."

Your review focuses only on the negatives, that Bridget's fear of being alone drives her into unhealthy relationships with men. She is certainly more desperate for male attention and affection than is healthy. On the other hand, it is natural that a young woman wants to meet a young man, fall in love, and get married. On that level, Bridget is living out the desire God planted in most people to find a life's partner. Her methodology (making herself sexually available for exploitation) is faulty. Her motivation (desiring a life partner who loves her) is just fine. Mark Darcy's statement to Bridget that he likes her just the way she is makes him the right choice, because he's not requiring her to compromise herself to meet his selfish needs, he's offering her unconditional love. She grows in self-respect through the movie, so that she is able to turn down the manipulative, self-centered man and finally turn to the man who quietly offers her respect and friendship as well as romantic love.

The self-loathing aspects of Bridget's personality -- her obsession with her weight and appearance, her striving to recreate herself in the image that the media promotes -- are the objects of satire in this movie, which means that the underlying message of the film is against those self-destructive tendencies. Making people (especially women) laugh at qualities in Bridget that they recognize from their own experiences encourages them not to continue to be bound by those qualities.

Yes, there is a sadness in the portrayal of Bridget, because there is a sadness in all good comedy. The laughter is an antidote to the things that make us sad; the laughter helps us leave those things behind. Bridget Jones's Diary, in my opinion, is skillful comedy subverting the values that lead lonely women into harmful relationships with self-centered men. Bridget's sexuality does not offend me; although Christians accept that we must reserve sex for the marriage relationship, Bridget's desire for sex is no different than our own. The bawdy and earthy elements of the screenplay did not bother me; God created us embodied creatures, and we ought to get all the joy we can out of our bodies, within God's wise guidelines that keep us from harm and exploitation. I am much more offended by the violence in many movies in which HJ finds merit than by the sexual misconduct in this movie, which at least springs from relational qualities built into humanity at creation. Bridget's longing for a man who is willing to make a commitment is God-given; it's the desire God planted in Adam, which made him exclaim with delight when he met Eve: At last! Here is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. I was happy to see Bridget at last end up with a man who delighted her and whom she in turn delighted.

By the way, Bridget Jones's Diary is hung on the basic plotline of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, a nineteenth century author who had a thoroughly Christian vision of human relationality. It's not actually biblical for this review to hint that lonely people should not seek to meet their emotional needs in human relationships, particularly marriage, but should spiritualize it into creativity or devotion to God. Those are good things, too, and we should devote our energies to them. But God did create us beings who long for each other's companionship, and he gave us each other as companions. The fact that Bridget has sexual longings for men and that she is seeking for one man to establish a loving sexual relationship with is a virtue, not a flaw, of this movie.
Janette Kok

I think the point is that two halves don't make a whole. If we are looking to find completion in someone else, we'll be very disappointed. Bridget could just never seem to find herself, even at close to 40, and that made me suspicious of even the good choice she made in the end. She definitely grew throughout the story, but was she really ready?

If we are looking for companionship and a person with whom to share all we "already" have, that's a different thing. Desiring romantic love is absolutely healthy and normal, but looking for completion in another human being is just bound to end in disappointments. I know I could never meet all of a man's needs, but I think I could sure increase and contribute to the happiness he already has.

And yes, the Pride and Prejudice tie-ins are wonderful! Remember, Jane's heroines were always very self-aware and complete in themselves - especially Elizabeth Bennett - which is certainly what God intends (Proverbs 31).

THERE IS A POSITIVE SIDE TO BEING ALONE.

Most of the world?s great souls have been lonely.
-- A. W. TOZER (1897?1963)

Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln . . . were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would work.
--CARL SANDBURG (1878?1967)

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
-- DAG HAMMARSKJ?LD (1905?1961)

For each, God has a different response. With every person God has a secret?the secret of a new name. In every one there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter.
-- GEORGE MACDONALD (1824?1905)

MATES COMPLEMENT
Subject: Mates Bridget_Joness_Diary
Date: Tue, 1 May 2001
From: withy

It's not that we need someone to complete us. We are already created complete, whether we've discovered it or not. We do seek someone to complement us. Opposites attract for a purpose--opposite personalities will always be drawn to each other consciously or subconsciously. If we wait until we have fully discovered everything within ourselves, we will be too old to have children! What person in their 20's really knows what they are all about or capable of? God intended us to complement each other by one's strengths covering for the other's weaknesses, to help each other grow, and to grow together. Unconditional love is necessary for this to work. And the best way to know if it is unconditional is to NOT have sex before marriage!

BRIDGET JONES AND BRITISH BLIND FAITH
Subject: Bridget Jones
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001
From: "Jon Zuck"

I saw BJD last night, and thought that this is one of the saddest comedies I've encountered in a very long time, possibly since "Four Weddings and a Funeral," another British romantic comedy. Non-romantic British comedies can be uproarious, but the romantic British comedy nowadays seems to be a optimistic look at personal tragedy.

Yet I don't sense the same sense of shatteredness in American romantic comedies, such as "Keeping the Faith," or "Forces of Nature," as recent examples. Is it that Hollywood cannot deal with the multitudinous aspects of love, including pain, in a comedy? That an American director will inevitably shy away from a realistic touch of a character's loneliness? Or do the British treat characters more realistically? Or is there something about the British culture that demands romance not be considered pure joy? Are Yanks shallower and Brits deeper?

I think the answer lies elsewhere. I'm going to really stick my neck out here, and let me say at the outset that I am an American, so this may well be my bias and misinformation, but here goes.

I believe the difference is God, or more correctly the impact of God upon cultural religions of America vis-a-vis Britain. We Americans tend to be believers. We're not necessarily Christians, followers, or even good people, but we are believers, down to 94-96% of the population. We excuse our sins, we run from God, we deny Him, but we know in our hearts where to turn for forgiveness.

I have read that belief in God is at a much lower level in the UK. Undoubtedly there is tremendous faith in the faithful of the land, but is belief is God as prevalent there? Do the majority of people sense that He/She is there and can be turned to in time of trouble? I don't know, but I think this may be a clue to differences I see in the romantic comedies of these two cultures.

For instance, in Four Weddings and a Funeral, the Church has virtually no impact on any of the characters; in spite of the funeral and all the weddings taking place in the Church. The only focus on a priest is as nervous buffoon, and none of the main characters make a single reference to God. In Bridget Jone's Diary, Bridget is lost, and neither friends, food, sex, booze can give her any comfort. If she cannot marry, she sees herself doomed to a lifetime of unhappy spinsterhood. There is no intimation that a single character in the movie has, or knows of, a spiritual life, a sustaining grace or a Supreme Being.

This is clearly different from the viewpoints of movies like Keeping the Faith and Forces of Nature. In the former, even if romance doesn't pan out, the priest and the rabbi still have God, and the girl still has her sense of self-worth, and a new-found faith. In the latter, an unseen hand acts to join two people together. Despite some (lighthearted) portrayals of pain, doubt, boozing, confusion and loneliness, there's still a feeling that, as the British mystic Julian of Norwich said, "God's in his heaven, and all's right with the world."
--- Shalom v'Tovah,
Jon Zuck Web
URL: http://surf.to/frimmin
It is more important to love much than to think much. Always do that which most impels you to love. --St. Teresa of Avila