BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY (2025)

Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Michael Morris
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Emma Thompson, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent, Casper Knopf, Mila Jankovic, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Coarse Language and Sexual References)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 13 February 2025

Synopsis: Two-time Academy Award® winner Renée Zellweger returns to the role that established a romantic-comedy heroine for the ages, a woman whose inimitable approach to life and love redefined an entire film genre. Bridget Jones first blasted onto bookshelves in Helen Fielding’s literary phenomenon Bridget Jones’s Diary, which became a global bestseller and a blockbuster film. As a single career woman living in London, Bridget Jones not only introduced the world to her romantic adventures, but added “Singletons,” “Smug-Marrieds” and “f---wittage” into the global lexicon. Bridget’s ability to triumph despite adversity led her to finally marry top lawyer Mark Darcy and to become the mother of their baby boy. Happiness at last. But in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Bridget is alone once again, widowed four years ago, when Mark (Oscar® winner Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan. She’s now a single mother to 9-year-old Billy and 4-year-old Mabel, and is stuck in a state of emotional limbo, raising her children with help from her loyal friends and even her former lover, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Pressured by her Urban Family —Shazzer, Jude and Tom, her work colleague Miranda, her mother, and her gynecologist Dr. Rawlings (Oscar® winner Emma Thompson) — to forge a new path toward life and love, Bridget goes back to work and even tries out the dating apps, where she’s soon pursued by a dreamy and enthusiastic younger man (White Lotus’s Leo Woodall). Now juggling work, home and romance, Bridget grapples with the judgment of the perfect mums at school, worries about Billy as he struggles with the absence of his father, and engages in a series of awkward interactions with her son’s rational-to-a-fault science teacher (Oscar® nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor).

Movie Review:

It is a sign of the times that the latest ‘Bridget Jones’ sequel is going straight to streaming in the US; and indeed, for those who grew up with the franchise, it was more than two decades ago that Renee Zellweger first assumed the eponymous character as a 30-something single working woman in London. It has also been close to a decade since we were last reunited with Bridget Jones in ‘Bridget Jones’ Baby’, and for those who remember, that film left off with our heroine as the beaming new bride of her soul mate, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

In case you’re wondering why Mark doesn’t appear on the cover of the poster for ‘Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy’, it is because the movie opens with Bridget as a widow, having lost Mark, a leading and world-respected human rights lawyer, in a bombing in Darfur four years ago. Still messy and disheveled as ever, Bridget is now a full-time mother to two beautiful kids – 10-year-old Billy (Casper Knopf), who has turned out serious like his father, and still sorely missing him; and precocious 6-year-old Mabel (Mila Jankovic), who is too young to remember much of her dad – while trying to make sense if there should be more to her life than just her kids.

Unlike the more screwball nature of the earlier two sequels, ‘Mad about the Boy’ takes on the anxieties, preoccupations and struggles of middle-age with just the right amount of seriousness and poignancy, while retaining just the right measure of levity. The former is established most certainly with Mark’s passing, whose absence is beautifully depicted in occasional but always heartstring-tugging ways; but also by the return of familiar faces, including best pals Shazzer (Sally Phillips), Tom (James Callis) and Jude (Shirley Henderson), parents Colin and Pamela (Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones), and former boss-slash-paramour Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), who while still a relentless flirt and a sly reprobate, is consciously aware that he has aged into something ‘a fraction tragic’.

On the other hand, Bridget’s hijinks this time round are largely kept to her encounters with the titular boy, 29-year-old Roxster McDuff (Leo Woodall), who rescues her from an ill-fated attempt to climb a tree in Hampstead Heath when Mabel is stuck on a branch. It is a dreamy, and occasionally steamy, fling no doubt, but kudos to the writers for not taking the ‘tragic widow seeking sexual awakening’ (that’s what her friends tag her page on Tinder as) too far; instead, it is a lesson for Bridget in acknowledging where she is at this point in her life, and therefore what truly matters.

What it does though is to open her eyes and mind to the possibility of opening her life to someone new, whom in this case happens to be Billy’s somewhat awkwardly uptight science teacher Mr Walliker (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Here, the meet-cutes with Mr Walliker are less dreamy and also less steamy, but more grounded in a steady buildup of chemistry between the couple – and to be fair, Ejiofor more than holds his own in his first rom-com/ romantic role being effortlessly charming in his own way. Oh yes, it is no secret that Bridget will have a happily-ever-after ending with Mr Walliker, but you’ll find that the journey to that destination is well-earned.

It is to director Michael Morris’ credit that ‘Mad about the Boy’ is probably one of our favourite ‘Bridget Jones’ sequels. Part of it is certainly because of nostalgia for a character whom those of a certain age bracket have grown up with; but more importantly, it is an affecting character study of what it means to embrace middle-age, as well as the attendant grief and loss that just hits harder when you lose not just a husband (or wife) but a companion for life. It is also to Zellweger’s credit that she remains as endearing and eccentric as ever, but this time with a greater deal of empathy than before, representing those in their 40s and 50s who have been through more of life’s vicissitudes.

Whether we will be reunited again with Bridget and with Zellweger remains to be seen, but if this is how the makers of the franchise decide to seal our memory of the character, it is as good a finale as it gets. Like we said at the beginning, it is a sign of the times that ‘Mad about the Boy’ is turning up on streaming in the US; but we suspect, whether you’re watching this on your couch or on a seat in a darkened cinema hall, the laughs, tears and affections are just as rewarding.

Movie Rating:

(Less screwball and more reflective, and dare we say intimate, this portrait of middle-aged Bridget is surprisingly poignant and heartfelt)

Review by Gabriel Chong