Dressing Bridget Jones in her 50s: The ‘Frazzled Englishwoman’ grows up
Twenty-four years since actor Renée Zellweger first appeared in the film adaptation of Helen Fielding’s literary bestseller “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” she’s back for her fourth turn as an endearing, klutzy character looking for love. Although this time, in “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” she’s no longer a carefree young woman, but a widow in her 50s, with two kids.
Jones’s personal style — a quirky, at times ill-fitting wardrobe of short skirts, cleavage-revealing tops, mumsy cardigans, granny pants and long scarves — helped cement her character into an unforgettable part of noughties pop culture history. Though, this wasn’t the intention of costume designer Rachael Fleming.
When creating the outfits for the first 2001 Bridget Jones cast, Fleming sought to give Jones — whose diary entries detailed her romantic adventures, weight, and alcohol and cigarette consumption — a pragmatic, somewhat disheveled look that would feel relatable to busy women. It’s a perspective that feels even more pertinent now in a glossy world of seemingly perfect and photoshopped images.
The style has since spawned a microtrend coined as the “Frazzled Englishwoman” aesthetic, which encompasses the kind of haphazard layering often seen on British people because of the country’s unpredictable weather. Think of a jilted Kate Winslet in “The Holiday” or a befuddled Keira Knightley in “Love Actually.” Such archetypes have also inadvertently appeared on the runways of luxury brands such as Chanel and Miu Miu.
Maintaining a feeling of “authenticity” and being “rooted in reality” was crucial to Molly Emma Rowe, the costume designer for Bridget Jones’s latest big screen adaptation. “Bridget has some nice clothes, and she tries her best, but she sort-of always gets it a bit wrong. There’s always something a little bit off, whether it’s the fit, or the pattern or color clashing,” she told CNN over a phone call.
In the new film, which releases in UK cinemas and on Peacock in the US on February 13, Rowe said there are fewer “iconic clothing moments” — such as the Playboy bunny outfit that Jones wore to the Tarts and Vicars party where almost nobody else is in costume, or the racy tiger-print underwear styled with nothing but a camisole and cardigan as she chased Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) in the snow. This time round, those kinds of “uncomfortable situations” simply don’t feature, added Rowe.
With Jones now juggling a career with parenting, friendships and dating, “it’s a very emotional film,” Rowe explained. “We’re trying to bring Bridget back to life and help her navigate through her grief. It was important for us that as she was finding her way, her clothes didn’t sort of challenge that.”
Jones’s wardrobe, like the character, is palpably more grown up. Cocktail dresses and cozy twinsets have been swapped out for work-appropriate blazers and cardigans layered over shirts, though Rowe retained some of Jones’s flirty personality by dressing her in pieces such as a mini skirt, made more demure styled with stockings. There are also plenty of subtle, nostalgic references to previous films, such as an emerald green dress, which Jones, in the opening scene of the new movie, struggles to zip up without Darcy — a nod to her look in the third film when she reunites with Darcy.
With only 12 weeks to pull together a wardrobe for the cast, and few of Jones’s old clothing in the archives, Rowe recreated some historical looks— such as the infamous red penguin-print pajama set (a version of the pajama top is worn by Jones on a school run in the new film). “The original ones no longer exist, so we had to recreate them,” explained Rowe. “We color-tested loads of reds on screen to make sure that after filming it would still look like the original red. That required fading out (the fabric), pulling threads and breaking buttons, to make them look like they’d been worn and washed over 20 years.”
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That was a key premise of the clothes worn by Jones: “Fashion is cyclical. You might find things that you’ve worn many years ago that you try out again later. We saw Bridget doing that,” noted Rowe. Many of the pieces Zellweger wore in the film were thrifted from charity and consignment stores, such as Mary’s Living and Giving in Hampstead, the north London neighborhood where her character lives. “Mark died four years ago and Bridget’s not out buying clothes. She’s struggling to keep it together, which is one of the reasons why nothing (in her life) looks new,” Rowe said.
Coping with grief and its subsequent impact on how one dresses was another focal point. Rowe drew on her personal experience having lost her father as a teenager, a “confusing time” that changed how her mother dressed. “My mom wore a lot of his clothes during that period. I think it was like reaching for a comfort blanket.” That inspired the oversized bobbly gray cardigan and shirts, monogrammed with Mark Darcy’s initials, which Jones is seen wearing throughout. For Rowe, it also added a nuanced perspective that wasn’t part of the script: “We could create the idea of what Mark Darcy might have been wearing at home with Bridget and the kids, which is not something you ever see on screen.”
“Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” also follows the recent releases of films that center on women in their 50s, such as “The Substance,” the provocative horror-comedy starring Demi Moore as a former A-lister past her prime and drawn to the potential benefits of a mysterious new drug, and “Babygirl,” an erotic thriller featuring Nicole Kidman as a high-flying CEO who begins an illicit affair with a young intern. It’s a welcome development after years of inequality in the representation of middle-aged and older females in film and television (female characters aged 50 and above continue to have a limited presence on screen and are far less likely to have a romantic storyline, according to a 2024 report by the Geena Davis Institute in collaboration with the NextFifty Initiative.)
If Rowe has a message for viewers, it’s that she hopes they’ll be “empowered to feel comfortable in their vulnerabilities,” she said. “To be a woman approaching or in her 50s and having these kinds of films to watch is very inspiring.”
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Struggling cinemas hope for Bridget Jones boost
Independent cinemas are hoping for a bumper Valentine’s weekend with the release of the new Bridget Jones movie as the industry continues to struggle with cost of living pressures.
While it is hoped the film – which opens in the UK on Friday – will do good business at the box office, some cinema owners and operators have said this is not the norm.
Cost of living pressures, the coronavirus pandemic and the changing streaming landscape have left many smaller venues fearing for their future.
Andrew Eyre from the Stag Theatre in Sevenoaks has a simple message: “If you don’t use your local independent cinema, you’ll lose it.”
The above factors have forced some venues to change tact to stay afloat.
Corinna Downing, co-owner of the Palace Cinema in Broadstairs, said the venue would operate on a part-time basis from April.
“We just couldn’t afford to stay open with energy costs and the cost of living crisis,” she explained.
Mrs Downing said it was “beyond our control” as fewer films were being released “which is why cinemas are showing classic blockbusters to get by”.
The 111 seat-venue often only fills about 30% of seats per showing, Mrs Downing explained.
However, there is a buzz around the latest instalment of screenwriter Helen Fielding’s creation.
Donna Taylor, general manager at The Kino in Hawkhurst, said showing Bridget Jones – Mad About the Boy would “put us on the map, bring in lots of revenue and get people talking about where they saw it and how good it was”.
Efforts are being made to make the experience as “accessible as possible” through mother-and-baby showings and screenings for school groups.
Louis Boswell, who also works at The Kino, said: “Huge films like this can encourage new faces to come through our doors and visit again another time.”
Jo Holmes, manager of the Carlton Cinema, said there was a “pyjamas and ugly Christmas jumpers” dress code at the Westgate venue for the film.
“Life is hard enough, so she turns up at job interviews [and] the school gates in her PJs. It’s very refreshing,” she said.
Ms Holmes believes big releases like Bridget Jones represent an opportunity for independent venues – one she hopes to capitalise on with themed events such as “Crafternoons”, where people crochet or knit while watching the movie.
Meanwhile, with the Stag Theatre still 15-20% short of pre-pandemic levels, Mr Eyre hopes this latest release will help.
“This weekend will certainly be big for us, it’s one of the biggest films and we’re hopeful it will help tickets sales,” he said.
Times like these emphasise the value of independent cinema, something which Mr Eyre hopes resonates.
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New experiences are springing up across the UK including in Margate in Kent and Polegate in Sussex.
Daisy Foster says she still has the attack in the back of her mind more than a year on.
Trevor Wicks says the Regent Theatre in Great Yarmouth could become “magnificent”.
Lewis Blake, a window shutter installer, took deposits totalling £65,000 from 89 different victims.
Customers described how the staff quickly arranged private screenings for them.
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Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy review – giant laughs for Hugh Grant but weepie sequel is strangely dazed
Renée Zellweger looks as if she’s thinking of something else in weird fourquel that sees our heroine choosing between new suitors Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor
T
he last Bridget Jones film – the second sequel, about Bridget having a baby – executed the daring athletic leap of jumping the shark and then jumping back. There were some tired novelties but, by virtue of its conscientiously maintained stream of likable gags, it leapt back into our hearts and BJ3 seemed a decent way to sign off the franchise and remember Helen Fielding’s inspired creation. But though I was willing myself to enjoy this fourth film, about the heroine’s adventure with a younger man, the Bridget Jones series has frankly run out of steam.
This is a fourquel in the same unhappy tradition as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. The jokes have been dialled down to accommodate a contrived and unconvincingly mature “weepie” component but the film becomes sad in the wrong way. The actors are mostly going through the motions, there is so little chemistry between each of the two lead pairings they resemble a panda being forced to mate with a flamingo, and Renée Zellweger’s performance is starting to look eccentric.
There are one or two nice touches: an uproarious pastiche of the Levi’s swimmer TV ad gives us a Darcy 2.0 hunk in the water and showcases Dinah Washington’s performance of Mad About the Boy; there’s a nice gag about Bridget being asked by a young man at the till if she wants to complete her meal deal. Naturally Hugh Grant gets giant laughs, returning as the ageing, golden-hearted cad Daniel Cleaver. So does Emma Thompson, back as the down-to-earth gynaecologist from the previous film. But Bridget herself looks marooned and oddly dazed.
Those who don’t want to know what is revealed in the trailer’s opening moments had better look away now … but Bridget’s husband has died. Carrie Bradshaw’s Mr Big collapsed fatally and ignominiously on his Peloton, but human rights lawyer Mark Darcy has somehow nobly expired doing his good works in foreign parts and the movie doesn’t give us the details. Bridget is now left a widow living in a gorgeous house in Hampstead, north London, with two preteen children, Billy (Casper Knopf) – the “baby” from the last film – and Mabel (Mila Janković) who get babysat by their cool Uncle Daniel and go to a posh prep school, presided over by uptight yet fanciable science teacher Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
All of Bridget’s mates return in continuing laugh-free cameos, including Shazzer (Sally Phillips), Jude (Shirley Henderson), Tom (James Callis), Miranda (Sarah Solemani) and Talitha (Josette Simon). Bridget’s mum and dad, Gemma Jones and Jim Broadbent, return too on a melancholy note and Celia Imrie is there so briefly she is almost subliminal.
After such a long time in brave misery, Bridget decides to revamp her life: she goes back to work as the world’s ditsiest TV producer and her friends urge her to get back in the dating scene. And so, on a thrillingly cradle-snatching basis, she ends her shag drought by hooking up on Tinder with Roxster, played by Leo Woodall, a sexy young park attendant at Hampstead Heath who gallantly rescues Bridget and her two kids when they get stuck up a tree.
So this age-gap affair continues, and incidentally all these recent older-woman-younger-man movies such as Babygirl, A Family Affair and The Idea of You are surely just marking time while the French cinema industry finally plucks up the courage to tackle the grande affaire of Brigitte and Emmanuel Macron. And yet something else happens in Bridget’s love life when she volunteers to help out on a school excursion led by Mr Wallaker – what looks like a geographically startling weekend trip from London to the picturesque Lake District, for which the school minibus has perhaps been fitted with supersonic jet engines or a Star Trek matter transporter.
With the exception of Grant and Thompson, really all of the actors are phoning (or rather voice-noting) it in, though this is a function of the material. Zellweger looks as if she’s thinking about something else and Woodall has none of the charm and believable humanity he has showed us before – the scenes here on Hampstead Heath are an uneasy, inadvertent echo of his romantic One Day moments on Primrose Hill. Fans might prefer to remember the previous three films.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is released on 12 February in Australia and 13 February in the UK, and on 13 February on Peacock in the US.
