Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy review – A hilarious, tear-jerking farewell

Can the world be mad at more Bridget Jones movies? No, and nor should it be. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is officially the last of the lot, and God does it go out with a bang.

“I feel like Bridget Jones,” is something every girl and woman has said aloud at least once a year since 2001. I certainly have felt it every time I’ve listened to ‘All By Myself’ or worn huge pants from a Marks & Spencer 5-pack (which, of course, I had on for the screening). Renée Zellweger’s version of her is both ahead of its time and timeless, embodying a chaotic feeling that’s inside us all.

There’s no wonder why the original is one of the best feel-good movies of all time. It’s not really had a bad sequel either, even when you don’t think it’s matched up to the first. Plans for a fourth were only met with squeals and relief that we finally get to visit our favorite mess (and feel better about ourselves in the process).

Even though Bridge hasn’t changed, the world has – and I wasn’t expecting to be so overcome by loss and grief in the new movie. Almost everyone had tears in their eyes at one point or another, including my editor Tom when he wasn’t eating the questionable crisps with her face on them. In her own way, she’s encapsulated what it means to lose and love in a world that doesn’t feel nice anymore, even if she stumbles a little along the way. Warning: minor spoilers ahead!

What is Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy about?

Almost 10 years after Bridget Jones’ Baby, our fave “frazzled Englishwoman” has two kids at elementary school. However, there’s no husband – Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian trip to Sudan some four years before. Friends old and new are itching for her to get back on the dating scene, including the now-alive Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).

While going back to work, fending off the other mothers on the school run, and getting stuck up a tree (this one makes more sense when you watch), Bridget soon finds herself growing closer to dating app young’un Roxster (Leo Woodall) and standoffish science teacher Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor). However, it’s going to take a lot of work and humorous montages for anything to fully come together.

It’s Hugh Grant’s world and Bridget’s living in it

Universal Pictures

No matter how you dress it up – or down sans Spanx, as Bridge finds out this time – Mad About the Boy is an absolute delight. It takes approximately 30 seconds to embrace the warm cardigan-shaped hug that emanates from the screen, wondering how we ever existed without our fix of middle-class madness. If I’m really complimentary, this might actually be the best sequel of the bunch.

Why? Alongside never dropping the ball on the typical comedy gags we’ve come to expect (this is how you do modernized humor well, people), it’s also an emotional odyssey into sitting with loss and grief. In a way, we’re seeing Bridget as we’ve never seen her before, fully realizing the scope of her grief that’s sat with her for the last four years. She sees Mark in almost everything she does, and that’s enough to bring a tear to your eye on its own.

Almost everybody you’d want to cameo here is making an appearance (small gripe of not enough Celia Imrie for my liking), but it’s Hugh Grant’s Cleaver who steals the show. He’s in the film for about six minutes in total, yet every line delivered is one you want to experience countless times. Cleaver is as charming, dastardly, and completely inappropriate as he ever was, and the sexiness that comes with that hasn’t gone away.

Amazingly, he’s also hitting some serious lows, which speaks both to Bridget Jones 4’s emotional scope and the range of Grant’s career over the last year. It’s a trick task to get comedy and tragedy to sit alongside one another, especially when you don’t really want the latter involved. But as I always remind my mum, stories must have their downs to reach their satisfying conclusions, and you won’t be left disappointed.

Does age really matter?

Universal Pictures

A few days after I watched Bridget’s last dance, my (older) girlfriend sent me a Radio 4 interview with the character’s creator Helen Fielding, speaking about the film’s younger lover. She explained how the original novel set to break free from stereotypes like “cougar” and “toyboy,” leaving the Miss Havisham middle-aged woman of yesteryear in the past.

Personally, I would argue the movie hasn’t done this as effectively as it thinks it has. I’ve been writing about age-gap relationships on screen since I started in the industry, and I’m now the younger partner in a loving relationship. Basically, I think I’m qualified to weigh in here.

Bridget Jones 4 isn’t completely free from stereotype when it’s still wedded to words like “toyboy,” women lying about their real ages, and having fairly insulting names for the youth such as Roxster (I mean, WTF?). This all feels unconscious, and the more obvious steps it’s taking to not make falling in love with a younger guy an issue – ie, most of the middle third – should be applauded.

But if we take cues from recent movies like The Idea of You, the fourquel becomes a bit of a practical joke. Where Anne Hathawill, Anne Hathaway, and she’s the only woman to so far embody giving zero f*cks about their partner’s age onscreen.

Peacock

It fits her nature, sure, but Bridget is incredibly aware of what she’s doing with Roxster. She continuously asks for acceptance and permission to love or hook up with someone who doesn’t fit the norm.

Isn’t this the same woman who once turned up to a family party as a Playboy bunny? Didn’t she throw caution to the wind to have her full-blown Cleaver affair? I know they say you get more fearful as you get older, but denying consensual pleasure between two adults isn’t the best message to take away here… even if it is carefully hidden in politeness.

Am I getting too bogged down in the deets? Perhaps. But Bridget has had over two decades of being the butt of a running social joke, and it’s time her writers and romancers serve her equally well.

Dexerto Review Score: 4/5 – Very Good

Ah Bridget, you balm for the soul. Never have we needed a dash of embarrassed flirting and accidental televised secret-sharing more. Zellweger is Bridge, so no issues there… but could the story have served her slightly better? Very possibly.

Still, it’s more than worth the watch for all the fun, laughs, and Hugh Grant-ness you’re guaranteed to get here. In fact, I defy a rom-com or sequel this year to be as satisfying as this.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is on Peacock from February 13, 2025. For more, check out the best rom-coms, best Hallmark movies, and more new movies streaming this month.

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