Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy | 2025
Renée Zellweger and Leo Woodall in BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY.
Nearly 25 years after the release of the original Bridget Jones’s Diary the venerable romantic comedy franchise has yielded an impressive three sequels. Bridget has had her ups and downs over the years, having had Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fight over her (twice!), and been the center of a paternity mystery between Firth and Patrick Dempsey. Yet none of her indignities have been quite so egregious as seeing the latest entry in her franchise skip theaters to get unceremoniously dumped on the Peacock app for its American debut over Valentine's Day weekend.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy has been a hit overseas, but for whatever reason, Universal chose to send it directly to streaming stateside; a major step down for a romantic comedy franchise that has always been a reliable moneymaker and even garnered its star and Oscar nomination for Best Actress once upon a time. It's a shame too, because it is arguably the best film in the series since the original, a surprisingly autumnal reflection on the series' legacy that at long last allows its characters to grow outside of the perpetual gawky spinsterdom that has defined the character of Bridget Jones thus far.
She's still the awkward scatterbrain we know and love, but director Michael Morris (TO LESLIE) wisely doesn't rehash the same formula we've seen over and over again. She's older, perhaps even wiser, and her priorities have shifted dramatically from the haplessly single heroine we met in Bridget Jones’s Diary back in 2001, whose desperation to land a husband has gotten her into two decades' worth of romantic messes. This time, her husband, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) is dead, and Bridget is now a single mom raising two kids on her own and hesitant to get back out there in the dating world. Naturally, her friends sign her up for dating apps, and she soon finds herself in a summer fling with a handsome, much younger, arborist named Roxby (Leo Woodall).
Despite the title, her fling with the Gen Z heartthrob isn't really the focus here. Mad About the Boy is more about its heroine, at long last, coming to terms with adulthood. It's a film about getting older, letting go of regret, and opening yourself up to possibilities. Bridget may not end up with the eponymous boy, but by allowing herself to feel desired again she finds unexpected love with her son's by-the-book teacher, Mr. Walliker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who has become a kind of surrogate father for him in the wake of Mr. Darcy's passing.
Morris allows these characters time to grieve and grow in ways they haven't been able to over the course of the franchise. They're older now, many of them have children, they've been around the block more than once, and their perspectives and priorities have changed. There's a sentimental streak at the heart of Mad About the Boy, but it never feels cloying - in allowing its characters to take stock of their lives it puts a fitting capstone on a franchise that's always dealt frankly with confronting beauty standards and the state of modern dating. It's had to adapt to changing landscapes over the years, but this new Bridget Jones is no longer about a woman who doesn't know what she wants; this is a woman ready to live on her own terms. There's something uniquely powerful about seeing a character we've known for so long really come to terms with being on her own, at long last loving herself first; and even though she does end up with a new man by the end, it's really not the point of the movie at all. Bridget Jones finally finds happiness in herself and with her kids.
Bridget Jones’s Diary was a kind of perfect romantic comedy. While the sequels have often been a mixed bag, Mad About the Boy is a surprisingly moving send-off for this beloved character, a character-driven romantic comedy that makes space for life's imperfections and bittersweet realities that certainly deserved better than "now streaming on Peacock."
