April 4, 2001, marked the release of what was going to become one of the most-loved romantic comedies of the new millennium – Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Based on Helen Fielding’s hugely successful novel of the same name, the film was critical and box office success; spawning a sequel and a number of pale imitations which still persist to this day.
The novel started life as a series of diary entries published in newspaper columns by Fielding under the pseudonym Bridget Jones. The success of the columns prompted her to collate them into a book. Published in 1996, Bridget Jones’s Diary became an instant bestseller not only in the author’s native UK, but also in the US and internationally.
The diary begins at the beginning of the year with the protagonist, the 30-something ‘singleton’ Bridget Jones, armed with a series of resolutions about her job, weight and love life.
She is fiercely determined to keep them all, but as the year progresses her best intentions slowly and inevitably begin to unravel as she juggles a relationship with her boss that seems to be going nowhere, her yoyo-ing weight and other crises of self-esteem, career and family, while ignoring the ‘smug marrieds’ around her.
That the book had the courage to highlight the fact that despite the leaps and bounds women have made over the decades, Bridget still had a less than satisfactory love life was daring; her bad habits, frank admissions of failures and less than perfect image struck a chord for millions of women – and men who read the book to see what the fuss was all about – and a new cultural phenomenon was born.
Since its publication, the book has sold millions of copies worldwide and it won the British Book of the Year Award in 1998. One would think it was the book’s eventual success that led to the inevitable film version, but producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner of Working Title, one of Britain’s leading film production companies (producers of such smash hits as Four Weddings and a Funeral, among many others), recognised the potential before the book exploded on the market, optioning the film rights as early as 1997.
While the project was in development, the book became part of the national psyche and it became apparent that with Bridget Jones’s Diary they had another hit on their hands – and production was soon in full swing.
The casting of Bridget caused some controversy. That the protagonist of such a quintessentially British success should be played by an American did not initially go down to well in the British media. But whatever the producers saw in her, they certainly got it right in casting Renee Zellweger, who nailed Bridget’s vulnerability, dorkiness and adorableness.
The role earned the actress much critical acclaim, with the New York Times saying that “Ms Zellweger accomplishes the small miracle of making Bridget both entirely endearing and utterly real.” Zellweger deservedly received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her efforts.
The casting of Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, the stuffy lawyer who fights for Bridget’s affections, was also a bit of a coup. Fielding had on more than one occasion confirmed that Bridget Jones’s Diary was very much inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Firth had become something of a sex symbol playing the role of Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of the classic, thanks in no small part to the scenes of him in a wet and clingy shirt.
Firth himself has admitted that one of the reasons he accepted the role of Mark Darcy was to liberate himself from the legacy of the ‘other’ Darcy.
The rest of the cast included some of the prime names of British film. Hugh Grant played Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s caddish boss, and veteran actors Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent played Bridget’s parents.
The film was an instant success with most critics and at the box office; ending up with a tally of $281 million on a budget of $25 million.
Its success was pretty much repeated with the 2004 sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, based, of course, on the second book in the series.
The film’s legacy also spawned numerous imitations; the ditzy, 30-something singleton a main component in many romantic comedies to this day. Yet, as I have oft lamented, no film has managed to come close to Bridget Jones’s absolute charm, humour and heart.