Bridget Jones - watched it last night, erm it’s aged a bit!

[Noeuf]

Gosh watched with dd as I was up late and it came on. Funny how I remembered it and how we’ve moved on now.
The emails about her skirt - funny/flirty then and now massively inappropriate
Darcy ‘negging’ her - dd couldn’t see why he was meant to be the one we all wanted
Fighting in the street! And no comeback for him as a human rights barrister
91/2 stone - and she was fat??!!! I weigh more than that and don’t think I’m comment worthy!
Just so interesting to see how my views have changed really.

[GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]

@Noeuf

Oh I love Bridget - grew up with the newspaper diary, read the books I’m not dissing Brdge!
Just surprised last night at how socially acceptable loads of stuff was like fighting in the street, trashing a restaurant etc and that just wouldn’t be seen as attractive now - Darcy is just rude and weird, and not in a brooding, manly way

I’m old enough to have been properly grown up when it first came out, and believe me, it certainly wasn’t ‘socially acceptable’ to trash restaurants or fight in the street!

One reason I think was so successful, is that it wasn’t ‘done’ at the time, to admit that you’d actually like a long term partner, or even a husband - rather than insisting that you were very happily single. But hardly anybody actually said it.*
Plus of course it was very funny!

The most ‘aged’ bit about it now, is IMO the fags.

*Apparently the same applied to the success of Jane Austen’s P&P - openly saying ‘Ooh, he has ten thousand a year - let’s try to nab him!’
Again, a thing that so many people thought, but it wasn’t ‘done’ to say it publicly.

[BalloonSlayer]

Bridget Jones diary started out as "Tge Diary of Bridget Jones," a column in the Independent. IIRC it was in the main bit of the paper, not the fun bit, and there was no author's name attached so for quite a while it wasn't clear if she was a real person or not.

Like everyone else at the time Bridget was avidly watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice, and she wrote in the diary about how she couldn't believe Elizabeth turns Darcy down and that she herself would have accepted him like a shot, no matter what he had said/done. Then Bridget meets Mark Darcy, who is standoffish, insults her, insults her (very annoying) mother, then asks her out . . . and she tells him to get stuffed.

It worked very well as a weekly serial. Daniel Cleaver is Wickham.

[MelonTits]

The link posted of the review at the time the film was released led me to www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/13/bridget-jones-diary-at-20-renee-zellweger which views it from the modern perspective. Agree with several points!

[IsabelHerna]

WOW I haven't watched it since then... God what were we thinking? The standards have changed. Seems like I have to rewatch old favourite movies... Well I think I found what I'll be doing in my 2weeks waiting after IVF.

[polkadotpjs]

Totally loved a d reread the books a lot and I actually love mad about the boy. It's so sad in parts and when I need to "feel" something it tunes me in. As for reality I can suspend it for the last book. Yes it's a rich woman struggling but she's lost her Mark and has to get on as a widow. Would I let the nanny get kids up while I lay in bed? Maybe not. Maybe so if I was rich and incredibly unhappy.
I enjoyed the writing but the films ? Not so much. And didn't like RZ. Wish it had been a Brit of normal size who didn't make a big deal of getting "fat" for the role

[WheelieBinPrincess]

@RandomDent that’s right, she hired a builder who convinced her she could have a second bedroom by decking a hole in the wall, but then just leaves said gaping hole. Then he sends her a bullet in the post, which is what gets her back with mark Darcy.

[RandomDent]

There was a bit in the book (maybe the second?) about remortgaging to do some improvements. Not sure about the film.

[Noeuf]

Still going! On the flat front I always assumed she rented it. Must have missed the mortgage but, probably because it was so far removed as a possibility for me at the time. Was renting a bed sit!

[MyrtlethePurpleTurtle]

@ChristieMalry

It was possible - just - to own a flat in places like shepherds Bush, inner south London, inner East London etc on a low 'professional' wage at that point. Hers was decorated nicely but obviously not completely modernised or brilliantly well built and designed.

Her modern counterpart would be working for pretty much the same amount of money or even for free on an internship and living in a shared house in zone 4+.

Never in Borough - even at the time, her lush apartment and locati N was always a bit of an eyebrow raise

[SoniaFouler]

Re: The fight, I was watching a BJD documentary around Christmas time and either Hugh or Colin said in the script the fight was meant to be much more serious and choreographed until they pointed out that their characters wouldn’t fight like that so they went down that comedic route instead.

[rookiemere]

In the book I believe BJ was meant to be early 30s. Quite old enough to be worried about not having DCs or not getting married. In the film she appears younger as played as some sort of hapless bumbling ingenue.

[Gwenhwyfar]

"We were in our late 20s/early 30s and no one felt any pressure to get settled. We were too busy playing the field having fun."

None of your friends in their early 30s wanted to have children? I find this hard to believe.

[CaptSkippy]

trying to fit Persuasion to a modern plot just didn’t quite work.

I think that Persuasion could fit very well into a modern version of it, but modern adapations are always tricky. I thought Clueless was reasonably well done.

[CaptSkippy]

@Gwenhwyfar

" He tells Caroline that women's minds always jump to marriage in an instance"

Well, yes, but it was true in those days as women needed to marry more than they do now.

Yes, but he was mocking for the fact that their only descent option for participating in society was to get married and have kids.

[BikeRunSki]

@QueenDanu

They should do a follow up now, itd have a touch of motherland, her kids would be teens though, she'd be a cross between julua and Anne if that's possible and it would show more of her work and wider family.

The third book, Mad About the Boy, takes this track a bit. It is totally different to the third film.

[ColonelNobbyNobbs]

That book was strange Kurtney you’re right. She actually did get fat in that one didn’t she and then lost all the weight after getting hypnosis or going to a clinic or something?!

[MarshmallowX1983]

Definitely of its time! Think about how much she smokes!! Representation in film and television has changed completely now. There are so many films and tv shows from the 90s and noughties that feel a little uncomfortable now.

[Barney60]

I love it, saw it again my self the other night, still think its brilliant!

[EndoratheWitch]

Totally agree with you. To me and my friends, the story was irritating and often pathetic and her aspirations so old fashioned! NO ONE in my circle of friends was bothered about being single/unmarried/childless. We were in our late 20s/early 30s and no one felt any pressure to get settled. We were too busy playing the field having fun.

[kurtney]

@QueenDanu

They should do a follow up now, itd have a touch of motherland, her kids would be teens though, she'd be a cross between julua and Anne if that's possible and it would show more of her work and wider family.

There was a follow up along those lines. Bridget seems to exist in several different universes and there was a third book where she'd married Mark and had two kids and spoiler he died, leaving her very rich and not having to work or worry about money.

It completely missed the mark. Whereas the first two were quite relatable, the third was not. It should have been like Motherland, but it was instead about a spoilt rich woman who still couldn't manage to get her shit together.

[QueenDanu]

They should do a follow up now, itd have a touch of motherland, her kids would be teens though, she'd be a cross between julua and Anne if that's possible and it would show more of her work and wider family.

[MitfordBlisters]

But what narrative arc works if everyone is perfect at the beginning? Successful adaptation or not, the point of this story (like every good story) is that Bridget/Lizzie is flawed (self-obsessed/self-centred) at the start, and Darcy is also flawed (rude, proud) and we see through the actions of the story that they change to become smarter, warmer, more appealing to us and to each other.

Offenseless, perfect characters from minute 1 might be how US dramas are made, but it’s pretty bland and unmemorable stuff.

[AnnieSnap]

Of course fighting in the street & trashing a restaurant wouldn’t have been acceptable at the time either @PinkTonic but much of what happens in books and films requires the suspension of disbelief doesn’t it?

As PPs have said the weight thing was about perception. I was a size 12 at the time and felt fat. Also, I’m sure a stick thin model from the New York would have considered me fat. As for the inappropriate sexual harassment in the workplace etc. Sadly, that kind of shit was considered normal at the time by men and women. A woman wouldn’t have been happy about it in someone she didn’t fancy, but most would accept it in someone she was happy to flirt with.

Thankfully, times have changed. Despite my Feminist principles, I still love me a bit of Bridget Jones, accepting as I do that the tale was of its time. In the same way, I suppose, that many still enjoy Charlotte Bronte’s work.

[Scottsy100]

Don’t be “that” person, it’s just a film.

[TatianaBis]

I didn’t likely the film but she was very good in it and her English accent was impeccable.