Do you remember the scene in the useless Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason that found the protagonist teaching fellow inmates of a Thai prison to sing "Like a Virgin"?
That abominable episode was not solely responsible for putting a key millennial phenomenon to sleep. There was also a creeping feeling that the reactionary sexual politics – keeping thin and male approbation as the greatest priorities – were beginning to grind down even devoted fans. Then there was the challenge of adapting a third novel, Mad About the Boy, that could only have been more depressing if it were in Russian. Oh, and Renée Zellweger (quite reasonably) didn't want to pile the weight on again.
It has taken more than a decade, but, working from a screenplay co-written by Emma Thompson, Sharon Maguire, director of the opening salvo, has delivered something unexpectedly tolerable for a third chapter.
Making a move that would, in the world of comics, cause the internet to explode with fan-boy fury, the writers have bunged Mad About the Boy (which dared to kill off Mark Darcy) in the bin and taken the story in a different direction.
The new film begins with an admirable rejection of the earlier fetishisation of self-pity. Bridget is still in her cosy flat. The opening chords of All by Myself kick off, but, before they can surge, she calls "bollocks" to that and slaps on Jump Around by House of Pain.
Rather than moving on to the death of Darcy (Colin Firth), the story proper begins with the regrettable – from our perspective – demise of top cad Daniel Cleaver (sadly, Hugh Grant appears only as a still image). Quite sensibly, the film-makers then rush us through the expected broader gags before settling down to a more relaxed pace.
Bridget nods politely to a passing herd of cultural references from the last decade – the cougar, glamping, promiscuous social media – on her way to an open-air festival where, because you’ve paid to see it, she falls face-down in the mud quite a lot. When not failing to recognise Ed Sheeran, she allows millionaire Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey) to charm her into his tent for something that surely only she still calls “bonking”.
Weeks later she does the same with old flame Darcy. Bridget falls pregnant and, at first, allows each to think he is the father.
The film has a struggle keeping its key conceit above water. Fear of the amniocentesis needle is not a plausible explanation for Bridget’s failure to have a DNA test before the baby arrives. The two men are insufficiently different to provoke satisfactory rivalry: Qwant is a bit flash, but he’s not any sort of cad; more morose than ever, Firth’s features startlingly gaunt, Darcy now comes across like Dirk Bogarde playing an Edwardian undertaker.
But the script has enough nimble moves to distract us from the creaky architecture. Though her face is not so mobile as it once was, Zellweger, still hitting those vowels like a Saxe-Coburg, brings a new assurance to the character that makes her all the more likable. Most importantly, the sheer duration of the romantic jostling between Bridget and Mark adds real poignancy to their frustrating inability to connect.
There are irritations here. The poundingly obvious jukebox soundtrack has an insistency that would win the respect of the CIA operatives outside General Noreiga’s house. The almost complete lack of black or Asian faces in the London scenes is disgraceful. But we are pleased and astonished to see the series age so gracefully.
