Slapstick rubbish (Spoilers)

relwes

Being male, I suppose that I'm not the target audience for this film, which is just as well, because I thought that it was rubbish. The performances are all good as far as they go, but the script is simply feeble. The plot is this: a slapstick comedienne called Bridget Jones is in a relationship with a high-powered human rights lawyer called Mark Darcy. However they find that personal differences are coming between them: she wants to go to parties, accidentally insult everyone there, and then fall down the stairs; while his interests include showing no vestige of humanity, being upper class, and smouldering in the background. Several crashingly unfunny scenes ensue: she suspects him of having an affair and falls off his roof trying to spy on him; they go on a skiing holiday and she falls off the ski-lift and then down the mountain; she tries to order a pregnancy test in Austria using a combination of mime and terrible mock German: all deeply second-rate stuff.

Then re-enter Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant): the attractive but untrustworthy philandering ex-boyfriend (worryingly I thought that Hugh Grant was the best thing about this film, and generally I can't stand him). Somehow or other Bridget and Daniel find themselves traveling to Thailand together, where there are some moderately amusing moments: she accidentally eats an omlette made of magic mushrooms; his attempts to seduce her are interrupted by the arrival of the Thai prostitute he'd pre-booked (he looks at the Thai girl, then at Bridget, and says "well I'm up for it if you are"). On the way home however she gets thrown into a Thai prison for accidentally smuggling cocaine: she spends her time in there discussing superbras and teaching the other inmates to sing Madonna songs.

Disappointingly though she is eventually released, thanks to the superhuman efforts of the tight-lipped but devoted Mark Darcy, and the mediocre comedy continues: Mark and Daniel have a pathetic fight in a fountain; Bridget gets soaked by a bus driving through a large puddle next to her; and (for the fortieth time in the film) whilst trying to discuss personal matters with Mark while he's at work, Bridget finds herself being humiliated in front of a room full of important international figures.

There are a couple of pointless subplots: her parents decide to re-affirm their marital vows; the sexy other girl who Bridget suspects is sleeping with Mark, actually turns out to have a lesbian crush on her. But overall there isn't a single genuinely funny moment in the whole film. Some of the scenes in Thailand have a certain charm, but almost all of the jokes have either been done to death already, or are just stupid slapstick nonsense. But as well as being unfunny, I thought this film was wildly unconvincing: Bridget Jones is meant to be a sort of everywoman, an ordinary thirty-something single girl who everyone can relate too. But she spends her whole time accidentally engineering herself into ridiculous situations. OK everyone's humiliated themselves in front of their partner's colleagues once or twice, but she does nothing else: it is her single defining character trait. For instance she's never skied before, but she claims to be an experienced skier, and then takes a chair-lift to the top of a mountain. This is profoundly foolish behaviour: is she really so deserving of sympathy when disaster inevitably strikes? Meanwhile Mark Darcy brings new meaning to the term "one-dimensional": he's polite and perfect, but he hardly ever shows the slightest emotion or interest in anything whatsoever.

I admit that I'm not the sort of guy who likes chick-flicks in general, but if you absolutely have to see one, there are any number of romantic comedies which are more plausible, more romantic, and funnier than this one.

score /10

relwes 18 November 2004

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0967851/