Salocin

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

I was one of the privileged few who knew someone who had invitations to the Bridget Jones Diaries II premiere in Brussels. I can't say that my expectations were very high, seeing as this was a Hugh Grant moulded enterprise that would undoubtedly be indistinguishable from Notting Hill, 4 Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones the First and 2 Weeks Notice (or was it 4?), to name but a few. I thought it would be utterly predictable and therefore somewhat lacking in creativity and imagination.

On the one hand, my low expectations were not surpassed. But on the other, it is clear that the room as a whole enjoyed the movie; it didn't get rounds of rapturous applause, but everyone laughed when they were meant to, and despite predictable criticisms regarding the depth of the story or script on the way out, you could tell everyone had been smiling and laughing.

The recipe is predictable. Take someone with a few convenient eccentricities (in this case, an inability to get anything right in any social situation), and exaggerate these flaws to extremes. Set them up in a sequence of events that will cause embarassing (and therefore, one hopes, funny) moments by bringing this flaw to the fore time and again. Set up expectations, in some cases through not-very-subtle dialogue, and then dash them in the most humiliating and embarassing way possible. The most predictable moment of all: Culminate in a moment of truth whereby the main character makes a declaration of love in front of an inappropriate and authoritative audience at an inappropriate and unusual venue. Make it look like an achievement.

Unfortunately, BJDv2 fails to break this mould in any significant way, and so if you're looking for a new and funny take on the recipe first established by 4 Weddings and a Funeral, then look elsewhere. If you're looking for the same take, with similar situational comedy, slightly inferior execution, and a smaller (and less interesting) cast of characters, then look no further. If you want to see what Renee Zellweger looks like when she's piled on the pounds, then this is the film for you, because if you thought she gained weight for the first BJD, this time it will blow you away - I hope she didn't have too much trouble dropping the pounds after the filming was over.

So is this the kind of movie I appreciate? Absolutely not. It's funny at times, and there are a couple of original moments, including a fun sequence in Thailand and an interesting resolution to the competing girlfriend issue, but certainly not enough for me to respect this as anything more than movie studios cashing in on a franchise with an uninspired script created out of necessity rather than and inspired desire to tell a story. But for all that I have to concede that such films have strong redeeming features. Primarily, I cannot deny that almost everyone in that movie theatre had a good time - had they paid for their tickets, they would not have felt the money had been wasted. There's something in that - not every movie can be fantastic and original, and although I feel they could and should have done better, there's a place - and an audience - for such movies.

While we will always appreciate great movies omre than those that merely manage to be entertaining, there is another measure of the success of a movie. When full theatres disgorge hordes of happy movie viewers, a need has been met, and people have enjoyed themselves. Like most candies, this is neither original nor creative, but it's still sweet, and that's all this movies' audience wants.