Wobbly Bits Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Directed by Beeban Kidron Written by Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis, and Adam Brooks Starring Rene Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent MPAA Rating: R 2 stars Running Time: 108 minutes Reviewed by David Lavery To begin, I should admit my biases. I do not ordinarily enjoy Chick Flicks, have not read one of Helen Fieldings incredibly popular Bridget Jones books, have disliked squirm-in-your-seat humor since subjected to I Love Lucy as a small child, and rank Rene Zellweger right up there with Nicholas Cage as my least favorite major stars. And yet there I was at the latest Chick Flick, squirm-in-your-seat Zellweger vehicle, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (hereafter BJER), enjoying myself. This Bridget Jones installment picks up only months after the last one (2001s Bridget Jones Diary) and pretends to be a brand new diary (its not that new). Bridget (Zellweger) is working as a wacky TV journalist, sky diving into a pig sty and that sort of thing, and lacking confidence (too fat, too dumb, too unsophisticated, too insecure about her wobbly bits) in her love affair with adorable human rights attorney Mark Darcy (Firth). (In the years most shameless product placement, Mark and Bridget are proclaimed to be the Real Thing on a Piccadilly marquee.) Bridgets anxieties (and Zellwegers agreeable performance of them) are as painful and squirm-inducing as they were in the first film, but without them we would have neither movie. With their relationship on the rocks, she jets off to Thailand on assignment to work with old near-flame publisher Daniel Cleaver (Grant), now an international travel expert and in shag therapy as he tries (not terribly hard) to cut down on his womanizing ways. Of course Southeast Asia proves to be just as good a locale for Bridget to find herself in a mess as the south of England (though this time a Brokedown Palace/Midnight Express kind of mess). BJER is the sort of film that is full to overflowing with impossibly silly references to spotted dicks, giant panties, magic mushrooms, bras, sticky wickets, twits, Ben and Jerry (with whom Bridget is having an affair after her breakup with Mark), orgasms, and Mrs. Dalloway (in the movies best double entendre, Daniel threatens to plunge back into her), the sort of film where a runaway trip down a ski slope ends with perfect illogic in Bridgets request for a pregnancy test, an implausible sojourn in a Thai prison results in a prostitute group-sing of Madonnas Material Girl, and Firth and Grant engage in the prissiest, most metrosexual, most hilarious fight scene of the year. BJER is not politically correct, or tasteful, or feminist, or memorable, but it is, while it lasts, fun and funny, even for somebody who dislike these kind of films.

WOBBLY BITS *BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON*

Directed by Beeban Kidron Written by Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis, and Adam Brooks Starring Rene Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent MPAA Rating: R 2 stars Running Time: 108 minutes Reviewed by David Lavery To begin, I should admit my biases. I do not ordinarily enjoy Chick Flicks, have not read one of Helen Fieldings incredibly popular Bridget Jones books, have disliked squirm-in-your-seat humor since subjected to *I Love Lucy* as a small child, and rank Rene Zellweger right up there with Nicholas Cage as my least favorite major stars. And yet there I was at the latest Chick Flick, squirm-in-your-seat Zellweger vehicle, *Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason* (hereafter *BJER*), enjoying myself. This Bridget Jones installment picks up only months after the last one (2001s *Bridget Jones Diary*) and pretends to be a brand new diary (its not that new). Bridget (Zellweger) is working as a wacky TV journalist, sky diving into a pig sty and that sort of thing, and lacking confidence (too fat, too dumb, too unsophisticated, too insecure about her wobbly bits) in her love affair with adorable human rights attorney Mark Darcy (Firth). (In the years most shameless product placement, Mark and Bridget are proclaimed to be the Real Thing on a Piccadilly marquee.) Bridgets anxieties (and Zellwegers agreeable performance of them) are as painful and squirm-inducing as they were in the first film, but without them we would have neither movie. With their relationship on the rocks, she jets off to Thailand on assignment to work with old near-flame publisher Daniel Cleaver (Grant), now an international travel expert and in shag therapy as he tries (not terribly hard) to cut down on his womanizing ways. Of course Southeast Asia proves to be just as good a locale for Bridget to find herself in a mess as the south of England (though this time a *Brokedown Palace*/*Midnight Express* kind of mess). *BJER* is the sort of film that is full to overflowing with impossibly silly references to spotted dicks, giant panties, magic mushrooms, bras, sticky wickets, twits, Ben and Jerry (with whom Bridget is having an affair after her breakup with Mark), orgasms, and *Mrs. Dalloway* (in the movies best double entendre, Daniel threatens to plunge back into her), the sort of film where a runaway trip down a ski slope ends with perfect illogic in Bridgets request for a pregnancy test, an implausible sojourn in a Thai prison results in a prostitute group-sing of Madonnas Material Girl, and Firth and Grant engage in the prissiest, most metrosexual, most hilarious fight scene of the year.

*BJER* is not politically correct, or tasteful, or feminist, or memorable, but it is, while it lasts, fun and funny, even for somebody who dislikes these kind of films.