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.

@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+.

No it wasn't.

@ohthestruggles

I never understood why she was such a 'loser' as she has fab friends, a flat in London and has casual drinks on a school night

Isn't it more that she viewed herself as a loser, not that she necessarily WAS a loser?

ooh I also had a moment of thinking IS SHE SAFE when she was walking back through Borough Market dressed as a bunny girl, which is a sad indictment of our safety as women now....

@Noeuf

‘Yeh there is much more awareness now of red flags. Negging, gas lighting, avoidance.‘

This is what dd and I were saying - dd was like ‘why didn’t he just tell her he was popping out to get a new diary?’ Whereas at the time the ending was really ‘romantic’

Gosh I’d hate to watch any film written by you or your daughter. How utterly mundane would that be?!

@Stovetopespresso

ooh I also had a moment of thinking IS SHE SAFE when she was walking back through Borough Market dressed as a bunny girl, which is a sad indictment of our safety as women now....

now

The point is that she thought she was fat

In the second film however, they took it too far - gold dress too small for her so it switched from her thinking she's fat to us thinking she's fat and I didn't like that very much.

As for Daniel's behaviour - she fancies him, she doesn't tell him to f*ck off (but she wakes up to him when he cheats on her) She walks in wearing an inappropriate outfit to get his attention - this is made obvious to us - and she gets that attention. Even perpetua raises her eyes at the outfit.

OP is massively missing the point

yup many of the issues have remained, it's the way they're communicated which has aged

I was always fascinated by Bridget's relationship with her mother. Her mum saying that Bridget & her Dad always made her feel silly and an outsider always got to me. I think it captures Lizzie & Mr Bennett's gang of 2 relationship very well. I loved the wedding at the end of the film - that shade of mauve!

Darcy is attractive because of how he contrasts with Daniel/Wickham.

The book was and is genius, being about letting insecurities and paranoia stopping women from forming genuine connections

The film was always crap because it tried to make Bridget a ‘heroine’ when the book encourages us to laugh at her

I was flicking through Netflix's and the synopsis for Indiana Jones was nothing about the plot, just a statement of how offensive and of its it's time it was. So nothing much say 10 years plus ago would probably be suitable now.

I think the gist is they get a bad first impression of each other. Then he sees qualities in her her likes but she is also herself with perceived personality faults. That's the entire plot of the film.

Yes its dated but look at what we have today? Silent witness type crime series etc is rape crime type entertainment or squid games.

‘OP is massively missing the point‘

No, I’m just not rewriting how I saw it at the time. Great if you saw it through a different lens, I’m just chatting shit on the internet,

YY to all those pointing out that the film is a travesty of the book. All subtlety is gone, loads of the character who are central in the book (and created the now-forgotten media coverage about friends being the new family) are sidelined (Jude, Shazza and Tom), and the weight thing becomes a real ‘thing’. I have never rewatched the film as I found it so shit on first watching.

And yes, it’s not just an ‘in-joke link to P&P Darcy’ - the whole book is a retelling of the story. It’s not that Darcy’s behaviour was somehow fine in the 90s and isn’t now - he’s meant to be a proud man, and a bit of a tosser but fundamentally very decent, who changes his opinion of Bridget as he gets to know her, although the film makes that a lot less clear than the book as the character of Bridget is just not the same.

@Benjispruce4

Oh and I always found the morning bedroom scene really awkward when he says that what they have just done is illegal in several countries and they giggle. Are they talking anal? I still find that out of place given her character and the newness of their ‘ relationship’ though it was more shocking back then.

Yes they are.

@Stovetopespresso

Ah yes I saw it too! so wrong it's right, very nostalgic. highlights for me, Hugh Grant saying smtg along lines of 'I'm just a creep with a posh accent and a dodgy personality', the hugeness of the flats, the IKEA wineglasses, the smug married scene, the possible ref to anal! but the ideals she was meant to aspire to, wtf was that? ironic but reinforcing at the same time.

agree books much more subtle.

@Stovetopespresso what was the possible ref to anal?

Isn’t the anal bit in the hotel? He says something like face the other way or something?

I am old enough to remember the original columns in The Independent upon which the book was based. They were absolutely brilliant and really hit the spot on 1990's life.

A lot of it is unchanged from the columns, so by the time the film came out it was years since Helen Fielding wrote it, so some attitudes had definitely changed already.

I felt I was Bridget Jones. We were the same age, I thought I was fat and ugly and I had a Daniel Cleaver in my life who, like Bridget's Daniel hung around for many years and never ever changed- he was always a cad and a bounder aka total bastard.

It was clear that the reader was meant to know what a git he was but Bridget fancied him like mad and really wanted to be able to change him. She was desperate for every scarp of attention from him.

In the early 90's some men really did behave in these dreadful ways and think it was OK. Things happened to me at work that now the blokes would end up in prison for! It was quite trendy to be a 'cad'.

Bridget just didn't realise how fabulous she really was. I certainly wasn't as fabulous.

@Gwenhwyfar

"Every newspaper column (which was turned into the book) started with her listing her exact weight, calories consumed and number of cigarettes smoked."

Yes, but not her HEIGHT. Without height, you don't have the BMI so you don't know whether 9st or 10st or whatever it soo much, too little, etc.
The author said this was on purpose.

This. I’ve just checked and her weight at the very first page of the first book is “9 stone 3 (but post Christmas)”

If she was 5 foot exactly that would give her a BMI of 25.2. If she was 5 foot 8 then that would give her a BMI of 19.6. For a person as insecure as Bridget if she was outside that range she almost certainly would have had a hang up about it so it would have been mentioned.

So she is a healthy BMI but not super skinny.

@Noeuf

Isn’t the anal bit in the hotel? He says something like face the other way or something?

It's the bit where she says what they had done is illegal in several countries.

"Oh and I always found the morning bedroom scene really awkward when he says that what they have just done is illegal in several countries and they giggle. Are they talking anal? I still find that out of place given her character and the newness of their ‘ relationship’ though it was more shocking back then."

Oh yes I remember it now. Yes, I was a bit shocked by that too. Maybe I'm just a huge prude but I still find it a bit shocking / surprising / unexpected from both of them.

Different film but recently I rewatched Pretty Woman which admittedly was based on a fairly dodgy premise even at the time it was made. We all knew even then it wasn't as romantic is it wanted to be cos at the core it it, there is still a wealthy man paying a vulnerable woman for sex.

But two other things stand out for me.
What sort of jerk orders snails for a woman he doesn't know loves them? If you are going to do the "order for the lady" outdated sexist thing, order her something less out there. Maybe a Caesar Salad?

And Edward pays her $3000 for a week of company and sex. How much does all the Rodeo Drive designer stuff cost? Wouldn't she maybe want fewer Ralph Lauren knickers and maybe an extra thousand in cash?

@Movinghouseatlast

I am old enough to remember the original columns in The Independent upon which the book was based. They were absolutely brilliant and really hit the spot on 1990's life.

A lot of it is unchanged from the columns, so by the time the film came out it was years since Helen Fielding wrote it, so some attitudes had definitely changed already.

I felt I was Bridget Jones. We were the same age, I thought I was fat and ugly and I had a Daniel Cleaver in my life who, like Bridget's Daniel hung around for many years and never ever changed- he was always a cad and a bounder aka total bastard.

It was clear that the reader was meant to know what a git he was but Bridget fancied him like mad and really wanted to be able to change him. She was desperate for every scarp of attention from him.

In the early 90's some men really did behave in these dreadful ways and think it was OK. Things happened to me at work that now the blokes would end up in prison for! It was quite trendy to be a 'cad'.

Bridget just didn't realise how fabulous she really was. I certainly wasn't as fabulous.

I agree with this. Also, the 'in-joke' about BJ and P&P wasn't so much of an in joke at the time it was written. The 1995 tv version of P&P was HUGE around the time the columns and books came out and a lot of people were obsessed with it (as Bridget was in the books).

I'm pretty sure it is I thought you said she was thin, so whilst Bridget thinks she's fat, Daniel doesn't and the other woman is trying to make Bridget feel bad about herself isn't she.

Doh, I somehow missed 4 pages and now my post is a bit irrelevant. Bridget Jones is, like many things, definitely of its time though.

Regarding her weight, the book makes it clear that she's a perfectly normal weight - not fat at all, but not stick thin.

I remember being disappointed that Renee Zellwegger put on so much weight for the film, to the point where it seemed a bit unbelievable that both men were so keen to be with her.

The whole point of it was that she wasn't fat, but thought she was.

Agree with you, OP. A lot of romcoms of the time have aged terribly. No one would identify with Julia Roberts' desperation to get married in My Best Friend's Wedding now.