As Suanie Sees It

So I’ve been meaning to write this ever since I saw the movie, something like one week ago. I don’t talk about a lot of movies now, but I feel that I HAVE to write about this one because I felt that the first movie opened so many windows of opportunities in Hollywood movie making. Major spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

Bridget Jones is back - bigger, fatter, not necessarily wiser and for me, less adorable.

The movie opens with the dreaded turkey curry Christmas feast. Bridget returns home to meet her all-familiar non-changing relatives and neighbours - the nerd cousin, the ditzy auntie, the perv uncle and… the Darcys. The ugly sweaters are back too, only this time they are in unison because if you didn’t all ready know, this year Bridget and Mark are officially a couple.

Life is great, sex is even better. Skipping New York for Bridget didn’t reduce Mark’s busy human rights lawyer responsibilities. Meanwhile Bridget is still doing embarrassing and most not-so-eloquent TV features but definitely happier this time round. They say regular sex gives you a natural glow.

Of course it can’t be a feature movie if everyone’s happy all the time. In walks Rebecca, Mark’s colleague who looks like an upper-class Keira Knightly, smiling all the way. Thus triggering Bridget’s insecurities leading to incidents that make up the whole movie. Didn’t help that Rebecca was in Mark’s house a lot and the two look as if they were made for each other.

But instead of knocking on the door demanding an explanation from her boyfriend, Bridget just has to clmb up his roof to spy. Next scene - a clumsy step that led to a loud thump, and her knocking the door covered in twigs and leaves to be received by an impeccably well-dressed Rebecca.

Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.

And asking her dysfunctional friends for relationship advise and eating everything up? Only Bridget Jones.

And splashing out on a knock-out dress that would have made Kate Moss looks a million dollars, making Bridget looks like an over-fed datin - what the fuck?

If there is a Rebecca for Mark then there is a Daniel for Bridget. The second pair ends up in Thailand for a holiday programme, ends up in almost-sex and ends up seeing Bridget in Thai prison for drug possession.

Maybe you start to think, maybe… just maybe there is hope for this movie after all, please do not let it drown reminiscent of one Coyote Ugly too many.

Hope fades when Bridget starts ‘educating’ her fellow inmates on the proper dancing style to Madonna’s Like A Virgin. She thus becomes the white heroine to Thai chicks who could use some of her mammary fats. The culture saviour, the pitiful wronged western soul stranded in the middle of nowhere with no one but her inmates to sympathise with her.

Who can save her? Not Daniel Cleaver of course, after all he just wants her hole not her whole. Ta-dahhh!!! her seemingly-uncaring boyfriend Mark Darcy saves the day. But wait… the boyfriend part seems to have vanished.

Back to London and for some unfathomable reason except to maybe prove his manhood, Mark Darcy confronts Daniel Cleaver and just like in the first movie, bashes the daylights out of him.

Blah blah blah, Bridget realises that Mark still loves her, off she runs helter-skelter to Mark’s house only to be greeted by a smiling Rebecca. The smiling Rebecca then delivered a speech equivalent to Gone With The Wind, that it isn’t Mark that she loves, it is you Bridget, you (If it all works out between the three of them, Mark would be a very happy man).

A girl-to-girl kiss later, Bridget runs off to Mark’s office then a whole spectacle of trying to explain to Mark that she still loves him. No wait, isn’t this just like in the first movie? Then Mark wanted to propose… but hold on, Bridget needs everything to be perfect! (woah just like in the first movie).

I understand that sequels are difficult to live up to their predecessors. Except for a few selected titles; Mortal Kombat 2, The Godfather 2 and I actually enjoyed American Pie 2 more than the original, most sequels would end up as bare recognisable shadows, doomed for comparisons as the efforts to further the stories in different angles yet remindful of the old flailing miserably.

Hence the full title of this movie is most apt indeed.

I did enjoy bits of the movie though. Even though the lines are pretty much predictable, they still provide a few short laughs. I had hoped that Bridget’s dad would be given a larger role as I much appreciated his performance in the first movie.

But seeing Colin Firth kiss someone on-screen is pretty yucky. The man should be looked at and not touched. I shall never forget Pride and Prejudice.

It is nice to see Rene Zellweger speak in a less American manner in her British role.

But overall if this movie reflects love in a size 14, I am not sure if I want it.