Three years on we have the sequel, which lazily retreads the same ground as the first film. I personally wouldn’t go that far, the film was a amusing piece of fluff which was notable for an excellent performance from the Texan Rene Zellwegger who made a decent fist of a home counties accent and the first decent performance from Hugh Grant, who excelled as Cleaver the cad, a refreshing change from his usual stammering, bumbling upper-class-fop shtick. It struck a chord with many women while simultaneously enraging some feminist writers who believed that this was a depiction of women that set the women’s movement back 30 years. You don’t get many anal sex gags in Meg Ryan films, that’s for sure. This was a refreshing change from the dearth of squeaky-clean romcoms starring the likes of Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson and lest we forget, Meg Ryan. Here was a character who was clumsy, obsessed with her weight, drinks too much, smokes too much. What raised Bridget Jones’s Diary above the rest of the dross was that Bridget was a character who garnered genuine sympathy from the (let’s be honest, predominantly female) audience.
![bridget jones diary edge of reason ffilms bridget jones diary edge of reason ffilms](https://hips.hearstapps.com/cosmouk.cdnds.net/15/53/480x200/gallery-1451512571-bridget-jones-fight-scene.gif)
True, it had the hallmarks of the CurtisCom: posh people falling in love and/or falling over posh people saying 'fuck’ a lot for supposed comic effect a strangely ethnically cleansed London where the only minorities are disabled or gay a dreadful bland-o-pop soundtrack Hugh Grant. It was with some surprise that after watching the Curtis-penned rom-com Bridget Jones’s Diary (adapted from Helen Fielding’s novel) that I found myself warming to it. Notting Hill is possibly my most hated film that doesn’t star Meg Ryan.
![bridget jones diary edge of reason ffilms bridget jones diary edge of reason ffilms](https://flxt.tmsimg.com/assets/p35099_p_v10_ac.jpg)
Especially if Richard Curtis has his hand in them. I’ll be honest: I don’t like romantic comedies.