Geek Girl Features

I can’t say the last time I watched an R-rated comedy and had a good time. Typically the fault in my lack of enjoyment lies in the overabundance of naked bodies and sex that occur on the screen, resulting in a more unonfortable viewing than I would like out of my movie experience.

So when I heard that “Bridget Jones’s Baby” was an R-rated film for its “sexual content,” among other reasons, I was reasonably wary, having no experience with the preceding films. I was rather surprised to find the complete opposite in an enjoyably, funny movie.

Taking place twelve years after “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” the movie finds Bridget(Renee Zellweger) alone at 43 in her London flat, braving the waves of change in the news industry to a more hipper angle, and serving as godmother to her friends and families children. Mark(Colin Firth) is married, Daniel(Hugh Grant) gone, and Bridget is running out of time and options, at least in her opinion.

Following a change of insight about the world, Bridget embarks on a weekend adventure with her coworker to a music festival, leading to a drunken one-night stand with a handsome billionaire(Patrick Dempsey), and eventually to a one-night stand with Mark, who is now getting divorced. All of this culminates in the news of Bridget’s pregnancy, father unknown, with a put-upon OB/GYN, played perfectly by Emma Thompson, in the midst of the madness and providing Bridget with the films steadiest advice.

“Bridget Jones’s Baby” could be knocked for not evolving its protagonist out of her clumsy life and significant-other hunting. But that is how her fans remember her, no matter that she might be more representative of the now-20-somethings than of the 20-somethings from 12-years ago, and even that a slim representation at best.

Renee Zellweger’s Bridget is the whole allure of the “Bridget Jones” series, and the rom-com crowd got to see one of the originals back in zany action one last time. Many a laugh are to be had throughout the entire film, and there is an ending to make all fans of Bridget rejoice.

Hopefully, now we can move this genre past its ingrained tropes and into a sphere currently occupied by shows like HBO’s “Girls” that gives women something more to do than be looking for Mr. Right(see “How To Be Single” from this summer for a taste of the potential).