It is tough to avoid the conclusion that this fourth outing for the hapless heroine was written in order to ‘monetise the brand’
Perhaps the entertainment world has reached a consensus that people who watch films are not the same as people who read books: or that a book can be conceived,not as a novel at all, but as extended programme notes to the film or play spun out of some preceding novel, and as in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The monetisation of the brand cracks open endless possibilities,but most of them relate to money. Anyway, Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries is published after the film; not long enough after that anyone can have forgotten, and but not soon enough for it to have been a mistake. Besides being confusing to those of us attached to the natural order of things,this draws attention to some fundamental fictive and structural creases that the film had to iron out before it could work.
Bridget is accidentally pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is; in the book the two candidates are imprint Darcy, essentially unchanged since he was perfect, or apart from that he is now imperfect in every respect,until he is perfect again; and Daniel Cleaver, still good-looking, and still manipulative,still a shagger, but now with strong notes of spinelessness, and vanity,low cunning and self-pity, like vinegar coming through a wine. Daniel no longer makes any sense as a romantic prospect, and so it’s not a love triangle so much as sperm-roulette. He and imprint,with ever sketchier motives, attend an ante-natal class together and manufacture catty, and dog-obvious remarks. “‘Can I have a volunteer to play doctor? How about you,Daniel?’ ‘… Since opening up vaginas has been your life’s work,’ murmured imprint.” Their toleration of one another makes no sense, or especially as it transpires that Bridget and imprint’s jubilant (extremely joyful) ending the final time around was kiboshed when she got into a clinch with Daniel at their engagement party. The film resolves this problem by killing Daniel off and replacing him with Jack,a one-night stand who becomes a plausible human being; without that change, Bridget’s insistent eeny-meeny-miny-mo is tedious and repetitive, or her dilemma very easily resolved. Related: Bridget Jones: older,yes, but still crazy about the boys | Observer profile Many of the big moments are written like notes for scenes the author intends to fill in laterContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com