If you’re not, or you’ve
made the error of spending a tenner on it already, read on.
So, seriously, what the
fuck?
I went along to see it with
a super good mate.
We’ve both got kids; we’re
now in our mid (that’s shorthand for late) thirties.
We are the target audience
having been brought up on Generation Bridget and looking round the cinema, 90%
of the audience were in the same demographic.
We have all recreated the
‘singing pissed using a hairbrush as a microphone’ moment. Own a pair of ‘Bridget,
they’re enormous’ pants. Shagged that person who seemed like a good idea at the
time even though you knew deep down it’s NEVER going to be a good idea.
Now, I hadn’t expected to be
wowed by a life-changing film, more experience the feeling of putting on a
comfy pair of slippers, or a cup of tea when you’re parched.
Familiar and satisfying.
What I hadn’t expected was
Bridget Jones to sell out. To give up. To not give a shit about feminism. To
become the ultimate ‘where’s my knight in shining armour?’
You’re 43, woman.
Not so much ‘come the fuck
on’ as ‘grow the fuck up, Bridget.’
So the story is she shags
the hot guy from Grey’s Anatomy at a festival. Then shags Mr Darcy, who’s been
off the scene for the best part of a decade, days later.
She finds out she’s
pregnant.
Fine.
Interesting start.
She’s described as a ‘geriatric mother’ by
gynaecologist/ midwife/ health visitor- Emma Thompson. A situation any of us
having had a baby in our mid-thirties will understand, perhaps even find hilarious.
The point I stopped caring/
started muttering at the screen, was when Bridget first kissed Mark Darcy.
Yes, they used to have
chemistry when he was boyish and a bit of an odd-ball in the cleverest boy in
the class kind of way.
But in his 40s, it was just
like watching Bridget get off with a paper-thin-skinned politician, all awkward
and sexless.
It's not like this anymore.
More like this.
Mr Dreamy was far hotter and
a much better fit; he was fun, ambitious, had something to say on the world
that wasn’t patronising or condescending.
But that aside, I just
wanted to say to Bridget- don’t go back! If you feel like you didn’t get
anything out of the relationship last time, what makes you think it’s going to
work again this time? She even described him as homely, or familiar, or
something so defeatist you wanted to light a stick of dynamite underneath her.
I’m not saying she shouldn’t
be secure or comfortable.
Just don’t settle. Don’t
settle for OK. This is the wrong message to be giving to the thousands of women
who will watch this.
This is not the ending we
wanted.
Just because we’ve grown up
on the wonderfully mismatched relationship of Mark and Bridget, doesn’t mean it
has to end that way if they’ve grown out of each other or are simply incompatible
now.
Bridget- choose the Dr
Dreamy.
Or do it on your own.
You
can do it, you have amazing friends, a supportive family, and more to the point
you are a strong, independent woman.
Don’t let us down.
There is also the matter of her ridiculous labour.
Water’s broken.
Eek.
No taxis.
Cripes.
Get a lift in a rickshaw
which gets stuck in traffic.
Goodness gracious.
Get carried a mile and a
half by Mr Darcy, who half way to the hospital hoiks you over to Dr Dreamy, who
turns up out of nowhere on a deserted London street (!) on a motorbike, to
carry you.
Don’t either of you carry her! Ring for a fucking ambulance!
‘You weigh a tonne Bridget.’
That is because she is
carrying an extra human being inside her you dick rot.
So, a few sweaty pushes
later, with Bridget’s vagina daintily covered with a towel (SERIOUSLY- SHE’S
EITHER GIVING BIRTH OR HAVING A SWEDISH MASSAGE- MAKE YOUR MIND UP!) her baby
is born.
And she marries Mr Darcy.
And Dr Dreamy is there at
the wedding as Mark’s new bestie, not at all fucked off that the baby wasn’t
his, or for that matter, that the girl he loved is marrying the most boring man
after John Major.
And they live happily ever
after.
Bridget. Helen Fielding.
Emma Thompson.
You have not just let yourselves down.
You’ve let all women down.
I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.